The First World War and International Relations Theory: A Review of Books on the 100th Anniversary

Abstract

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. Christopher Clark. HarperCollins, 2013. July 1914: Countdown to War. Sean McMeekin. Basic Books, 2013. The Russian Origins of the First World War. Sean McMeekin. Harvard University Press, 2011. The Origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and Military Documents. By Annika Mombauer (editor), Manchester University, 2013. The Fischer Controversy 50 Years On. By Annika Mombauer editor of Special Issue of Journal of Contemporary History July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914. Thomas G. Otte. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. July 1914: Soldiers, Statesmen and the Coming of the Great War: A Brief Documentary History. By Samuel Williamson Jr, Russel Van Wyk. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. The First World War was probably the most important political event of the modern global system. It transformed in a fundamental way how we think of war and created an aversion to war that is still present (Mueller 1989). Academically, it has remained the most complicated of wars. For political science and international relations (IR), it has had a special impact with many of our theories, including both spiral and deterrence models, being influenced by our understanding of it. The 100th anniversary of the First World War has produced, as expected, a spate of new books on the outbreak of the war. These books are not simply commemorative; they show that we are still far away from a consensus on certain basic issues. In fact, what the books make clear is that the First World War is still an open field. In this review, I will concentrate on three things: (i) the shift in the understanding historians have of the origins of the war and some of the central remaining questions, (ii) the implications of the recent historical scholarship for IR theory, in particular the applicability of some of our conceptual approaches, like two-level games and the importance of domestic politics, and (iii) the merits of each book for classroom use. There are many reasons why IR scholars need to read these books, but an essential one is that they reflect a shift away from the view that Germany is mainly responsible for its outbreak, a view that goes back to the war guilt clause of the Versailles Treaty, but in recent times has been most associated with the Fischer (1967, 1975) thesis. The consensus among historians has varied over time, but Germany has been a focus of blame, except for the brief revisionist period in the late 1920s …