War and social change in modern Europe : the great transformation revisited / Sandra Halperin.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 445-498) and index.

Conflict and change in world politics -- The first transformation : social forces in the rise of Europe's nineteenth-century market system -- Europe's nineteenth-century industrial expansion : a "bottom up" perspective -- Europe's century of war, 1815-1914 -- World War I and the postwar retrenchment -- The polarization of European society, 1918-1939 -- The politics of appeasement and counterrevolution : international relations in Europe, 1918-1939 -- The post-World War II order -- The great transformation and the eternal return : "globalization" reconsidered.

Print version record.

"This book revisits the historical terrain of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944). Recent years have seen a remarkable resurgence of interest in Polanyi's powerful account of the rise and demise of Europe's nineteenth-century market system. However, this book argues that Polanyi's analysis is, in important ways, inaccurate and misleading. Sandra Halperin traces the persistence of traditional class structures during the development of industrial capitalism in Europe and the way in which these structures shaped states and state behavior and generated conflict. She documents European conflicts between 1789 and 1914, including small- and medium-scale conflicts often ignored by researchers, and links these conflicts to structures characteristic of industrial capitalist development in Europe before 1945. Ultimately, the book shows how and why these conflicts both culminated in the world wars and brought about a "great transformation" in Europe. Its account of this period challenges not only Polanyi's analysis but a variety of influential perspectives on nationalism, development, conflict, international systems change, and globalization."--Jacket.

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