This is the only modern study of European politics to cover the entire timespan from the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 to the revolutionary year of 1848. Paul Schroeder's comprehensive and authoritative volume charts the course of international history over this turbulent period, in which the map of Europe was redrawn time and again. Professor Schroeder examines the wars, political crises, and diplomatic opportunities of the age, many of which - the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna and its aftermath - had far-reaching consequences for modern Europe.

Professor Schroeder provides a new account of the course of international politics over these years and a major reinterpretation of the structure and operation of the international system. He shows how the practice of international politics was transformed in revolutionary ways, with far-reaching and beneficial effects. The Vienna Settlement established peace by abandoning the competitive balance-of-power politics of the eighteenth century, and devising a new political equilibrium. It created a European consensus on a new political balance with new rules to maintain it, ushering in a uniquely peaceful, progessive period in European international politics.