This expressly interdisciplinary collection of essays by historians and political scientists overseen by two political scientists joins a veritable throng of prior work on the Great War. It merits attention nevertheless. Jack S. Levy, John A. Vasquez and their contributors advance our knowledge on controversies over the so-called German paradigm and preventive war. Despite the subtitle, there is a lot here on decision-making, rather less on politics and very little on structure. The historians and historically-minded political scientists scour the archives to explore the fine grain of decision-making, the personalities and particular context of specific events, though more according to disciplinary norms than a self-conscious, agent-centered approach. The political scientists meanwhile are on the whole less interested in grand strategy in the European balance and concerned more with dyadic rivalry dynamics.

The book opens with a generally negative assessment of the German paradigm, suggesting that the rise of Russia and the dynamics in the Balkans play a more significant role than an exclusive focus on what amounts to German war guilt allows. Despite contributing important perspectives of powers in the European balance, chapters on Russia and France are confusingly left to the end of the book. A chapter on the UK would also have been a welcome addition.

Dale C. Copeland’s chapter is the fulcrum of the volume, and is the primary object of the editors’ contributions that appear on either side of his. Copeland has persuaded himself, if no one else, of the culpability of the Germans. Chapters by Samuel R. Williamson, William Mulligan, and T. G. Otte will give the reader reasons to doubt this. Vasquez critiques the claim that Germany alone was responsible for the war. Instead, building on the historical analysis of others, he suggests we consider the Great War a two stage process: what would otherwise have been another Balkan War got out of hand and escalated through multiple European rival dyads, of which Germany’s rivalries with the UK and France were not even the most salient. The editors devote their time to the meaning of preventive war. It is argued that it can only meaningfully be understood as a strategy and also that it is imperative for the idea to be circumscribed for fear that otherwise every conflict onset be seen as the result of some sort of anticipatory action. The now familiar distinction of preventive and preemptive war is briefly presented as if unproblematic in the context of this war’s origins. The distinction strikes me as a product of definitional fiat rather than of strategic substance.

Among the many books on the Great War, Levy and Vasquez’s book falls decisively in the category of diagnosis of the outbreak of war. It is noted more than once in this book that there is much material that can support many contrary theories of the war. We should not be surprised therefore that no single conclusion regarding either of the two controversies is reached. I was surprised that there was little reflection on the problem of looking for a definitive cause or causes or that such analysis is inevitably associated with the attribution (or otherwise) guilt. If we see stories of war origins as narratives, as Suganami showed us some time ago, the search for a cause, let alone the cause, is surely chimerical. Today’s story will reflect today’s priorities. Indeed, in its discussion of preventive war and also the concerns with the rising threat of Russia, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see lessons that the book has for current events.

The search for a cause of war and its corollary, the condition of peace, has significance far beyond conflict studies, of course; it has been a foundational preoccupation of academic international relations. As good a book as this is, I can’t help feeling that as a discipline it is time to turn our attention to different views, different history. In the end, the war’s conduct and its consequences are more interesting and important than its causes. While I was reviewing this book, I was also reading the story, told through war diaries among other things, of a British officer who fought at the Somme. And my own work on English School scholar C.A.W. Manning has led me to his wartime service. I mention these because the stories we tell of war are a product of the questions we are interested in.

An exclusive focus on cause has a larger cost, highlighting events and decisions in the early stages of and prior to war. A war is always more than that: Important actors and decisions are marginalized or left out altogether in the exclusive concentration on those that acted early on as opposed those that did not. The United States is not in this book at all, for example, being even further from the central narrative than is the UK. As well as the prime focus on Germany, there is quite a lot here on the fall and rise of Russia; nothing on a state that ultimately tipped the balance of the conflict. Why? This may not be a very historical question, but I suppose that’s my point.

Readers might be forgiven for wondering from the outset, why another book on the Great War? Why another commemoration of the centenary? What’s the use indeed, of another review, one published closer to the anniversary of the Somme or the Russian Revolution than the beginning of the war? Such thoughts had crossed my mind, but I was reassured as I noticed that a number of colleagues already have the book and speak highly of it. Scrupulously edited and carefully compiled, this book is destined to be an oft-used supplementary text for international conflict courses in political science, international relations, and international history.