This book addresses the crucial phase in the emergence of the modern international system which, with the subsequent addition of the USA, Japan and Russia, has prevailed until the present day.

The first detailed and comprehensive study of British foreign policy the the age of the American Revolution in the context of Britain's other eighteenth-century conflicts, including the continuing rivalry with the Bourbons.

How the system of five great powers in conscious equilibrium came into being is the central theme of this book. This is the first sequence of books dealing with the rise and fall of the European states system.