The global conflict

When this highly successful survey first appeared in 1984 it dealt with the period 1880-1970. Now, this long-awaited Second Edition - which has been entirely redesigned and reset in a more readable format - brings the story up to date, following the themes through to 1990, and covering the momentous events of the last 20 years. The book is an analytical account of the international rivalries of the great powers in the country since the centre of gravity of international politics began to move out of Europe into a wider arena. This shift was the result of the intensifying imperial rivalries of the European powers beyond the boundaries of Europe itself, and also of the rise to more than regional influence of two non-European newcomers, the United States and Japan. The new order has been characterised by growing global interdependence, where power struggles in one part of the world can, and increasingly do, have profound repercussions elsewhere. Domination by the great powers has taken many forms in the period, from the competition of the European empires before the First World War, through Hitler's dream of world hegemony, to the bi-polarisation of the Cold War. Professor Bartlett traces the interconnections, and the widening fall-out, of these international rivalries, showing how the fates of Europe, America and Asia have become ever more intimately entwined as the century proceeded. After the Second World War, a bi-polar world, held taut by the mutual antagonism of the American and Soviet blocs, became the new reality. It was only in the 1960s that the limitations and inadequacies of this bi-polar model in turn became apparent. Nevertheless, as the new chapters of the Second Editionmake clear, the global rivalry of the two superpowers persisted, until the collapse of the USSR itself inaugurated a fresh pattern of global power-politics in the post-Soviet world.