This encyclopedic-style guide to international relations and diplomacy consists of 900 entries, arranged broadly by key concepts, such as diplomatic relations; diplomatic agreements; force and diplomacy; doctrines; policies and tactics, etc. moving from the general and structural issues of the global system to more detailed events, crises and war. The editors draw together a large quantity of background and contextual information on the evolution and functioning of the global international system in one volume. It covers the time period from the Vienna Congress in 1815 to the present.

The First World War was the defining event of the twentieth century and the Paris Peace Conference the most important such conference. The four years following the war helped determine whether the world would find peace or face another war. In December 1916 David Lloyd George became Prime Minister of Britain and came to dominate wartime diplomacy and postwar international affairs. Although he resigned in October 1922 and never held high office again, he was the pre-eminent liberal statesman of the twentieth century. Arguably Lloyd George was the equal of Winston Churchill as a war leader and indisputably superior as a creative, ingenious, and visionary statesman.

Historical knowledge in its various forms - learned, observed and experienced - is one of the principal intellectual resources available to politicians and the officials who serve them. These policy communities habitually, though sometimes naively, inexpertly and misleadingly, use history in the crafting of policy. In this book the question of whether politicians use history wisely and judiciously is posed about those who inhabit the Kremlin as well as the White House. The question has several dimensions which are examined here in a series of original essays. Is historically based reasoning rational? How influential is historical knowledge in deliberations over policy? And does historically based reasoning lead to sound decisions about future policy? The authors range over a wide area of economic and political issues - Palestine, Soviet policy, British and United States hegemonies and comparable predicaments, United States acceptance of its international responsibilities, Soviet expansionism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, US policy towards Latin America and the historical content of President Bush Sr.'s response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.