The Causes of War: Volume IV: 1650 - 1800

This is the fourth volume of a projected six-volume series charting the causes of war from 3000 BCE to the present day, written by a leading international lawyer, and using as its principal materials the documentary history of international law, largely in the form of treaties and the negotiations which led up to them. These volumes seek to show why millions of people, over thousands of years, slew each other. In departing from the various theories put forward by historians, anthropologists and psychologists, the author offers a different taxonomy of the causes of war, focusing on the broader settings of politics, religion, migrations and empire-building. These four contexts were dominant and often overlapping justifications during the first four thousand years of human civilisation, for which written records exist.

Table of Contents:
I. Introduction 1. The Conversation on Sunday Afternoon 2. Utopia 3. Facts 4. Casus Belli in Practice 5. Volumes One to Three 6. Volume Four II. The Glorious Revolution 1. Introduction 2. Republics 3. The First War between the Dutch and English Republics 4. Allies with France, War with Spain 5. The Restoration 6. Alliance with Portugal and Further War with Spain 7. A Second War with the Dutch, and then the French 8. Alliance with France, Further War against the Dutch, and Another Peace 9. War and Peace with English and the Indigenous Communities in the Colonies 10. The Causes of the Revolution in England 11. The Invasion of England 12. The Glorious Revolution 13. John Locke 14. Constitutional Monarchy Entrenched 15. Liberty 16. Conclusion III. The Wars of Louis XIV 1. Introduction 2. The Ongoing Conflict with Spain 3. The War of Spanish Inheritance 4. The War of France and England against the Dutch Republic 5. The Reunion Wars 6. The Nine Years War 7. The War of Spanish Succession 8. Conclusion IV. The Interregnum 1. Introduction 2. Succession and Dynastic Considerations 3. The War of the Quadruple Alliance 4. The 1720s 5. Skirting a Major Conflict in the 1730s 6. Conclusion V. The War of Austrian Succession 1. Introduction 2. The Prize 3. Frederick II 4. The Opportunities for Others of the Habsburg Inheritance 5. Splintering the Opposition and Building New Alliances 6. The Slide Towards World War 7. Coming to the Boil 8. Full Boil 9. Bonnie Prince Charlie 10. Expansion and Exhaustion 11. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 12. Conclusion VI. The Seven Years War 1. Introduction 2. The New Plan 3. Trouble in the Colonies 4. Austria Backs Away from its Alliance with Britain 5. Britain Makes a Deal with Russia 6. The Treaty of Westminster Trumps that with Russia 7. Misreading the Opposition 8. New Friends and New Neutrals: The First Treaties of Versailles 9. The Deepening Conflict 10. The Invasion of Saxony 11. The Widening Conflict in India and North America 12. The Expansion of the Anti-Prussian Alliance 13. Extreme Pressure Applied on Prussia 14. The Push Back 15. A Good Year for Britain 16. The Pressure on Prussia and Victories for Britain 17. The Entry of Spain 18. The Exit of Russia 19. The Last Actions 20. The Peace of Paris 21. The Peace of Hubertusburg 22. Conclusion VII. The War of American Independence 1. Introduction 2. Before the Revolution 3. After the Seven Years War 4. Land and Native Americans 5. Sugar and Stamps 6. A Revised Approach 7. Tea 8. The Intolerable Acts 9. 1774: The Reaction 10. A Shot Heard Across the World 11. The Justification and Escalation 12. The First Help and Assistance 13. Common Sense 14. The Declaration of Independence 15. Military Survival and Political Cohesion 16. The French Enter the War 17. As the War Grinds on in North America, it Expands into Other Parts of the World 18. Spain Enters the Fray 19. Tupac’s Rebellion in Peru 20. A Global War 21. The League of Armed Neutrality 22. The Last Years of the Conflict 23. Peace 24. The Native American Question 25. What the Americans Fought for 26. The United States and the Wider World in the 1790s 27. The French Revolution and the Turn Towards Isolationism 28. Conclusion VIII. The French Revolution 1. Introduction 2. Kings 3. Philosophers 4. The Fuse to Revolution in France 5. The Foreign Context 6. War 7. The First Coalition against the Republic of France 8. Internal Enemies 9. The War Changes, Turns and Expands 10. Britain Fights Alone 11. The Second Coalition 12. Napoleon 13. Conclusion IX. Slavery 1. Introduction 2. Numbers and Impact 3. Supply 4. Traders 5. Indentured Labour 6. The Laws of Slavery 7. Slave Revolts in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century 8. Dissent against Slavery 9. Slave Revolts up to 1765 10. The American Revolution 11. The Abolitionist Movement in Britain 12. The French Revolution 13. Saint Dominique/Haiti 14. The Revolt 15. Conclusion X. The Wars of North and Eastern Europe 1. Introduction 2. The First Northern War 3. The Second Northern War 4. Between the Wars 5. The War of Polish Succession 6. The Austrian War of Succession 7. The Seven Years War 8. Catherine the Great 9. The First Partition of Poland 10. Rebellions against Serfdom 11. The Almost War of Bavarian Succession 12. The Second Partition of Poland 13. The End of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania 14. Paul I 15. Conclusion XI. Religion 1. Introduction 2. Enlightenment 3. Religion as a Pretext for War 4. The Movement Towards Tolerance 5. Religion in the Revolutionary Wars 6. Conclusion XII. The Muslim Territories 1. Introduction 2. The Ottoman Empire 3. The Siege of Vienna 4. North Africa 5. New Ottoman Conflict with Russia 6. New Ottoman Conflict with the Venetians and the Habsburgs 7. The End of the Safavid Dynasty 8. The Rise of Nader Shah 9. The Austro-Russian and Ottoman War of 1735 to 1739 10. Aurangzeb and the Mughal Empire 11. Nader Shah at Full Strength 12. The Rise of the British in India 13. Three Decades of Russian-Ottoman Conflict 14. War and Peace in Eighteenth-century North Africa 15. The Challenge at the Epicentre of the Ottoman Empire 16. Conclusion XIII. China and its Neighbours 1. Introduction 2. The Shunzhi Emperor 3. The Kangxi Emperor 4. The Yongzheng Emperor 5. The Qianlong Emperor 6. Europeans 7. Conclusion XIV. Grand Plans for Peace 1. Introduction 2. Hobbes 3. Penn 4. Leibniz 5. The Abbé Charles de Saint-Pierre 6. Vattel and Wolff 7. Voltaire 8. Rousseau 9. Bentham 10. Kant 11. Conclusion XV. Conclusion 1. Absolute Rulers 2. Religion 3. Ideologies of the Enlightenment 4. The Muslim Territories 5. China and Asia

About the Author :
Alexander Gillespie is Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Professor of Law at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.