PART ONE Introduction: Problems of Interpretation -- 1 On War and the Causes of War -- 2 A Thirty Years War? The Disintegration of Europe -- 3 The Case Against a Thirty Years War: The Restoration of Europe -- 4 History and Historians -- PART TWO: The Underlying Forces -- The Role of Ideology -- 5 Italian Fascism -- 6 German Nazism -- 7 Parliamentary Democracy: France and Britain -- 8 Soviet Communism -- Economic Issues and the Coming of War -- 9 The Great Depression and International Relations -- 10. Economic Problems and the Coming of War -- The Role of Strategy and Armed Force -- 11 Armed Forces, Strategy and Foreign Policy (1): France and Britain -- 12 Armed Forces, Strategy and Foreign Policy (2): Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union -- PART THREE: The Coming of War, 1932-1941 -- Introduction -- 13 From Peace to the Eve of War, 1932-1937 -- 14 War postponed, 1938 -- 15 Decisions for War, 1939 -- 16 The Expanding War, 1939-1940 -- 17 Germany and the Soviet Union, 1940-1941.