Paul W. Schroeder is an American historian and professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois, specializing in the late sixteenth- to twentieth-century European international politics, Central Europe, and the theory of history. His current research focuses on European international politics, 1648-1945, emphasizing systemic evolution and development.
He received his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 1958.
In a 1972 essay "World War I As A Galloping Gertie", Schroeder blamed Britain for the First World War. Schroeder argued that the war was a "Galloping Gertie", in events escalated out of control, sucking in all of the Great Powers into an unwanted war Schroeder that the key factor in the European situation was what he claimed was Britain's “encirclement" policy directed at Austria-Hungary Schroeder argued that British foreign policy was fundamentally anti-German, and even more so, anti-Austrian Schroeder claimed that 1914 was a "preventive war" forced on Germany to maintain Austria as a power, which faced with a crippling British "encirclement policy" aimed at the break-up of that state
Apart from his scholarship, Schroeder recently has been a regular contributor to the paleoconservative magazine The American Conservative, writing strong critiques of the Bush administration's foreign policy (especially regarding the Iraq War) for its destabilizing, counterproductive effects. The internationalist, realist perspective of his critiques fits well with his favorable appraisals of the 19th-century Concert-of-Europe approach to international relations that Schroeder has offered as a model in his scholarship.
The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations, 1941 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958).
Metternich's Diplomacy at Its Zenith, 1820-1823 (Austin, Texas: University of Texas press, 1962). Paperback reprint by University of Texas Press, 1976.
Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972).
The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 (Oxford Clarendon, 1994).
Articles
"Metternich Studies since 1925," Journal of Modern History, 33, (Sept. 1961), 237-66.
"Austrian Policy at the Congresses of Troppau and Laibach," Journal of Central European Affairs, XXII, 2 (July 1962), 139-52.
"Austria as an Obstacle to Italian Unification and Freedom, 1814-1861," Austrian History Newsletter, 1962, 1-32.
"American Books on Austria-Hungary," Austrian History Yearbook, II (1966), 1972-196.
"The Status of Habsburg Studies in the United States," Austrian History Yearbook III. Pt. 3 (1967), 267-295.
"Bruck versus Buol: The Dispute over Austrian Eastern Policy, 1853-1855," Journal of Modern History, XL, 2 (June 1968), 193-217.
"Austria and the Danubian Principalities, 1853-1856," Central European History, II, 3 (Sept. 1969), 216-36. in JSTOR
"A Turning Point in Austrian Policy in the Crimean War: the Conferences of March, 1954," Austrian History Yearbook, IV-V (1968-1969), 159-202.
"World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak," Journal of Modern History, 44, No. 2, (Sept. 1972), 319-344. n JSTOR
"The 'Balance of Power' System in Europe, 1815-1871," Naval War College Review, March-April 1975, 18-31.
"Romania and the Great Powers before 1914," Revue Roumaine d'Histoire, XIV, 1 (1975), 39-53.
"Munich and the British Tradition," The Historical Journal, 19, I (1976), pp. 223—243. in JSTOR
"Alliances, 1815-1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management" in Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Problems of National Security, (Lawrence, Kansas: Univ. of Kansas Press, 1976), pp. 247—286.
"Quantitative Studies in the Balance of Power: An Historian's Reaction," and "A Final Rejoinder," published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, XXI, No. 1 (March 1977), 3-22, 57-74. in JSTOR
"Austro-German Relations: Divergent Views of the Disjoined Partnership," Central European History, XI, 3 (September 1978), 302-312.
"Gladstone as Bismarck," Canadian Journal of History, XV (August 1980), pp. 163—195.
"Containment Nineteenth Century Style: How Russia was Restrained," South Atlantic Quarterly, 82 (1983), 1-18.
"The Lost Intermediaries: The Impact of 1870 on the European System," International History Review, VI (Feb. 1984), 1-27.
"Oesterreich und die orientalische Frage, 1848-1883," in Das Zeitalter Kaiser Franz Josephs von der Revolution zur Gruenderzeit (Vienna, 1984), Vol. I, 324-28.
"Does Murphy's Law Apply to History?", The Wilson Quarterly (New Year, 1985), 84-93.
"The European International System, 1789-1848: Is There a Problem? an Answer?", colloquium paper presented March 19, 1984 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (52 pp.).
"The European International System, 1789-1848: Is There a Question? An Answer?", Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (1985), 1-29.
"The 19th-Century International System: Changes in the Structure," World Politics 39, 1 (October 1986), 1-26. in JSTOR
"Old Wine in Old Bottles: Recent Contributions to British Foreign Policy and European International Politics, 1789-1848," Journal of British Studies 26, 1 (January 1987), 1-25. in JSTOR
"Once More, the German Question," International History Review IX, 1 (February 1987), 96-107.
"The Collapse of the Second Coalition," Journal of Modern History 59, 2 (June 1987), pg. 244-290. in JSTOR
"An Unnatural 'Natural Alliance': Castlereagh, Metternich, and Aberdeen in 1813," International History Review X, No. 4 (November 1988), 522-540.
"The Nineteenth Century Balance of Power: Balance of Power or Political Equilibrium?", Review of International Studies (Oxford), 15 (April 1989), 135-153.
"Failed Bargain Crises, Deterrence, and the International System," in Paul C. Stern et al., eds., Perspectives on Deterrence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 67-83.
"Germany and the Balance of Power: Past and Present Part I", in Wolf Gruner, ed., Gleichqewicht in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Hamburg: Kramer, 1989), 134-39.
"Die Habsburger Monarchie und das europaische System im 19t. Jahrhundert," in A. M. Birke and G. Heydemann, eds. Die Herausforderung des europaischen Staatensystems (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1989). 178-82.
"Europe and the German Confederation in the 1860s," in Helmut Rumpler, ed., Deutscher Bund und Deutsche Frage 1815-1866 (Vienna, 1990), 281-91.
The Years 1848 and 1989: The Perils and Profits of Historical Comparisons," in Samuel F. Wells, ed., The Helsinki Process and the Future of Europe (Washington, DC, 1990), 15-21.
"Review Article. Napoleon Bonaparte," International History Review, XII (May 1990), 324-29.
"Napoleon's Foreign Policy: A Criminal Enterprise," Journal of Military History 54, No. 2 (April 1990), 147-61. in JSTOR
"Die Rolle der Vereinigten Staaten bei der Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges," in Klaus Hildebrand et al., eds., 1939: An der Schwelle zum Weltkrieg (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), 215-19.
"A Just, Unnecessary War: The Flawed American Strategy in the Persian Gulf." ACDIS Occasional Paper, March 1991. 14 pp.
"The Neo-Realist Theory of International Politics: A Historian's View." ACDIS Occasional Paper, April, 1991. 12 pp.
"Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?", American Historical Review, 97, 2 (June 1992), 683-706, 733-5. in JSTOR
"The Transformation of Political Thinking, 1787-1848," in: Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, eds., Coping with Complexity in the International System (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 47-70.
"'System' and Systemic Thinking in International History," Journal of International History Review xv, 1 (February 1993), 116-34.
"Economic Integration and the European International System in the Era of World War I," American Historical Review 94, 4 (October 1993), 1130-37. in JSTOR
"Historical Reality vs Neo-Realist Theory," International Security 19, 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 108—48. in JSTOR
"History vs. Neo-realism: A Second Look," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer, 1995), pp. 182-195 in JSTOR
"History and International Relations Theory: Not Use or Abuse, but Fit or Misfit," International Security, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer, 1997), pp. 64-74 in JSTOR
