In its first form this book was completed in the autumn of 1916; and it contained, as I am bound to confess, some rather acidulated sentences in the passages which deal with the attitude of America towards European problems. These sentences were due to the deep disappointment which most Englishmen and most Frenchmen felt with the attitude of aloofness which America seemed to have adopted towards the greatest struggle for freedom and justice ever waged in history. It was an indescribable satisfaction to be forced by events to recognise that I was wrong, and that these passages of my book ought not to have been written as I wrote them. There is a sort of solemn joy in feeling that America, France, and Britain, the three nations which have contributed more than all the rest of the world put together to the establishment of liberty and justice on the earth, are now comrades in arms, fighting a supreme battle for these great causes. May this comradeship never be broken. May it bring about such a decision of the present conflict as will open a new era in the history of the world--a world now unified, as never before, by the final victory of Western civilisation which it is the purpose of this book to describe. Besides rewriting and expanding the passages on America, I have seized the opportunity of this new issue to alter and enlarge certain other sections of the book, notably the chapter on the vital period 1878-1900, which was too slightly dealt with in the original edition. In this work, which has considerably increased the size of the book, I have been much assisted by the criticisms and suggestions of some of my reviewers, whom I wish to thank. Perhaps I ought to add that though this book is complete in itself, it is also a sort of sequel to a little book entitled Nationalism and Internationalism, and was originally designed to be printed along with it: that is the explanation of sundry footnote references. The two volumes are to be followed by a third, on National Self-government, and it is my hope that the complete series may form a useful general survey of the development of the main political factors in modern history. In its first form the book had the advantage of being read by my friend Major W. L. Grant, Professor of Colonial History at Queen's University Kingston, Ontario. The pressure of the military duties in which he is engaged has made it impossible for me to ask his aid in the revision of the book. R. M. July 1917 CONTENTS