This course explores the history of the international state system, encouraging students to consider how this system has been constantly adapting and evolving for hundreds of years as states compete for power. It examines how wars between European states, along with diplomacy, empire-building, and the quest for wealth, led—unintentionally in many ways—to a broader, international system not confined only to European “great powers.” Students will study themes such as strategy and war, empire and imperialism, and trade, diplomacy, and state-building to understand the rise and fall of major states and empires over the centuries.

Key events include the Thirty Years War in Europe; the global implications of the Seven Years War and Napoleonic Wars; and the roles of non-European regions like China, India, Japan, and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. The course also considers the effects of imperial competition in Africa and Asia, both for the imperial powers and the peoples and states of those continents; the diplomacy and competition that led to the First World War; and the global impact of the Second World War, with the rise of “superpowers” and the collapse of the European and Japanese empires.