Politics of Smallness in Modern Europe, The: Size, Identity and International Relations since 1800

Rather than simply assuming that some states are small and others are big, The Politics of Smallness in Modern Europe delves deep into the construction of different size-based hierarchies in Europe and explores the way Europeans have thought about their own state’s size and that of their continental neighbours since the early 19th century. By positing that ideas about size are intimately connected with both basic discourses about a state’s identity and policy discourses about the range of options most appropriate to that state, this multi-contributor volume presents a novel way of thinking about what makes one state, in the eyes of both its own inhabitants and those of others, different from others, and what effects these perceived differences have had, and continue to have, on domestic, European, and global politics. Bringing together an international team of historians and political scientists, this nuanced and sophisticated study examines the connections between shifting ideas about a state’s (relative) size, competing notions of national interest and mission, and international policy in modern Europe and beyond.

Samuël Kruizinga is Senior Lecturer in Military and Modern History at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has published widely, in English, French and Dutch, on military and international history in the 19th and 20th century, with a particular focus on the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, and on small states in the international system. He recently edited, along with Ruud van Dijk, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer, and Rimko van der Maar, Shaping the International Relations of the Netherlands, 1815-2000: A Small Country on the Global Scene (2018).