The period between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries was a phase of profound political and economic mutation for the Iberian Peninsula, in the context of which the confluence of expansionist processes dictated the emergence and reconfiguration of different political maps. This chapter seeks to trace the general evolution of the different political models that took shape in the Iberian Peninsula throughout this period, as well as to characterize the action of the institutions responsible for defining the foundations of an economic policy. To this end, the chapter is divided into two parts. The first one focuses on the evolution of the space controlled by the Muslims, looking at transversal aspects of economic policy and the implications deriving from the development of the territory. The second part focuses on the study of Christian institutions, on the construction of the Iberian kingdoms, and highlights the role of the monarchies and political institutions in the establishment of the economy and on the transition from a war-based economy to an economy where the market and trade assume a growing importance.

A striking number of accounts stress the continuity between the foreign policy of Wilhelmine and Nazi Germany. Hitler was simply a more virulent nationalist and militarist, so some sort of revisionist expansion was inevitable in German foreign policy. The Nazis, however, were a fundamentally different type of right-wing force. Hitler dismissed the very existence of humanitarian ethics as a mere social construction and illusion, refusing even the typical scorn more traditional German nationalists expressed vis-à-vis its wartime adversaries. Hitler’s regime explicitly redefined the national community not as a cultural and linguistic entity but as a biological one. Rather than a continuation of previous tendencies in German nationalism, it was a decisive moral break and led to a wholly different basis for, and type of, international aggression. Hitler dismissed the ambitions of Weimar nationalists of the Wilhelmine variety, whose only interest was to rail against the injustices of the Versailles Treaty and demand the return of lost German lands that were rightly hers. For Hitler, no one had any right to any piece of territory; one simply took it. As a consequence, he defined fundamentally different foreign policy goals than his contemporaries and predecessors: the creation of Lebensraum to provide for Hitler’s growing population.

A large body of archaeological and anthropological research suggests that warfare is more common when societies are stratified. This is true for societies based on either sedentary foraging or agriculture. We argue that warfare in stratified societies does not require climatic or technological shocks, and results from competition among rival elites over land rent. In our model, elites recruit specialized warriors by offering booty in the event of victory, which may involve elevation to elite status. After each elite recruits an army, the rival elites must decide whether to attack, defend, or flee. We solve for the equilibrium at the combat stage as a function of army sizes, and use backward induction to solve for the equilibrium army sizes. If stratification is relatively low (the land rents are small relative to commoner food income), elites can sometimes win through intimidation without fighting an actual war. But if stratification is high, such equilibria disappear and the only outcome is a mixed-strategy equilbrium with a positive probability of open war. In either case, successful elites expand their territory. Fiscal constraints on the capacity of elites to recruit warriors can sometimes limit warfare, but do not prevent it entirely.

In 1700 about 250,000 European colonists and enslaved Africans lived in North America, primarily along a thin strip of land bordering the Atlantic Ocean. By 1870 these scattered colonial settlements had been consolidated into two continental nations – the United States and Canada – with a combined population of more than 40 million. Although agriculture remained the leading employer in North America in 1870, the rapid growth of industry was transforming these nations into increasingly urban and industrial societies and contributing to the accelerating growth of living standards. This chapter locates the sources of this remarkable growth in the interactions of abundant natural resources, a responsive economic and political system, and sustained technological progress. Yet the story of these years is not solely one of economic success. From the perspective of the aboriginal peoples of North America, European settlement and expansion had tragic consequences. So, too, the experience of enslaved Africans and their descendants was one of remarkable hardships. Slavery proved a source of continuing political tensions that resulted in a destructive and costly civil war and left a legacy of racial segregation and tensions that are still palpable today.

Against the backdrop of internationalization and the circulation of new ideas and modes of cooperation, the Allied Machine planted the seed of a new, modern system of European collective security, which included the imperialist surveillance of European populations and an increased territorial expansion of the four great powers, especially at the expense of the non-European world. Rather than the ministers, sovereigns or princes, the true winners of Europe after 1815 were the bureaucrats, deputies, officers, diplomats, experts, managers, bankers and lawyers. A new professional caste of security professionals and administrators arose from the Allied Machine and the Vienna System, leading to tax reforms, the standardization of police practices and transnational expertise. These were essential to the restructuring of Europe after Napoleon. In the late nineteenth century, the United States continued to gain influence and riches, weakening Europe’s position in the world. However, the security mechanisms implemented by the Allied Machine in the immediate post-war years left their mark on nineteenth-century Europe, and beyond.

The introduction sets forth the central claim of the book - that the United States has a record of ambassadors, ministers, envoys, and other diplomatic agents disobeying orders that no other country can match - and explains why this is: i.e. Americans' singular conception of the role of diplomacy in national life and how that conception has been translated into the organizational apparatus through which statecraft is conducted. I also contend that, for the most part, this perennial insubordination has been good for the United States, that America would be weaker, smaller, and less prosperous today had diplomats like Robert Livingston and Walter Hines Page not defied Washington and decided to chart thier own courses. In addition, I explain why I have chosen to employ a case-study approach to the subject, identifying several U.S. rogue diplomats who failed to make the "final cut" either because their disobedience did not rise to the level of my nine protagonists or because the consequences of that disobedience were not as momentous as, say, the Louisiana Purchase. Finally, I situate the book within the existing historiography, which, I note, has largely ignored America's uniqueness in this vital dimension of geopolitics.