War and Social Change in Modern Europe

Sandra Halperin traces the persistence of traditional class structures in the course of the development of industrial capitalism in Europe and the way the structures influenced state behavior and generated conflict. Halperin focuses on the interrelationship of social forces, industrial expansion, and conflict in Europe between 1789 and 1944 (in part through a critique of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944)). Her account of the period challenges not only Polanyi's analysis, but a variety of influential perspectives on nationalism, development, conflict, international systems change, and globalization.

1. Conflict and change in world politics; Industrial expansion in nineteenth-century Europe: a critique of the Polanyian view; Conflict and change: a class approach; The Great Transformation, revisited; Part I. Social Forces, Industrial Expansion, and Conflict in Europe's Nineteenth-Century Market System: 2. The first transformation: social forces in the rise of Europe's nineteenth-century market system; The aristocratic - 'absolutist' conflict; National political revolutions and the struggle for the state; The new balance of social power and the new European order; Class conflict, revolution, and war; 3. Europe's nineteenth-century industrial expansion: a 'bottom up' perspective; The dual economy; Domestic markets; The circuit of capital; 4. Europe's century of war, 1815-1914; Conflict and dualistic industrial expansion; Labor, enfranchisement, and ethnic struggles; Imperialist conflicts; 5. World War I and the post-war retrenchment; Imperialism and war in Europe; The post-war retrenchment; Labor, democracy, and minorities between the wars; Imperialism in the interwar years; Part II. The Interregnum: 6. The polarization of European society, 1918-39; Prelude: challenge and response, threat and compromise before World War I; Post-war revolutionary currents and the Fascist reaction; The polarization of European society; 7. The politics of appeasement and counter-revolution: international relations in Europe between the wars; British appeasement policies; The 'appeasers'; alternative interpretations; Part III. The Great Transformation: 8. The post-World War II order; Europe's post-World War II social peace and prosperity; Social structure and development in post-war Europe; Peace in Europe; 9. The great transformation and the eternal return: 'globalization' reconsidered; Europe's nineteenth-century industrial expansion: the 'great transformation' revisited; Globalization: the 'great transformation' reversed?