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Ikenberry reviews 'The Columbia History of the 20th Century' edited by Richard Bulliet.

Though twentieth century historians have often considered military historians a variable to be reckoned with, the study of weapons and armies has nevertheless been seen as an "asset" to those who research political, social and cultural phenomena. After all, the scholars who work in this field end up studying, collecting, and most importantly, providing data. However, those who study armed conflicts from a broad perspective (which is, in fact, of a political, social or cultural nature) have often viewed military issues as a somewhat closed or concrete sphere; while the field leads to useful interpretations, these have always been seen as either subordinate in some way, since they are limited to or projected in the framework of a specific context, or decisive, yet isolated factors which disregard underlying, widely-accepted trends. However, there seem to be more and more convincing reasons for rethinking the position of military history among the methodological approaches used to study, understand and interpret twentieth century history.

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- I: Introductory -- 1 The Enlightenment and its Enemies -- 2 The Twentieth Century: Liberation or Catastrophe? -- 3 The Shifting Balance: A Changing Britain in a Changing World -- II: The German Wars -- 4 The First World War Reconsidered -- 5 War and Peace in 1914 -- 6 War and the Making of Nations -- 7 A Thirty Years' War? The Two World Wars in Historical Perspective -- 8 A Missed Opportunity? Britain and the German Resistance, 1938–1944 -- III: The Cold War -- 9 The Cold War: A Personal Retrospect -- 10 1945–1995: Fifty Years of European Peace -- 11 Cold War, Chill Peace -- 12 NATO: An Unhappy but Successful Marriage -- IV: Europe after the Cold War -- 13 What is 'Europe'? (For the Norwegians) -- 14 The European States-System in an Era of Change (For the Germans) -- 15 Britain, France, and the Making of Europe (For the French) -- V: The 'War against Terror' -- 16 War against Terrorism -- 17 September 11 and After -- 18 Keeping Order in a Global Society: Pax Americana or Global Policing? -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z