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The literature on the post-1950 arms trade is exhaustive. In contrast, there is almost nothing that examines the pre-1950 trade in arms in a solid, empirical manner. This volume fills that void. It is a broad collection of articles that examines aspects of the global trade in armaments from 1815 to 1940. Its collective thrust analyzes the connections between diplomacy, the domestic politics of procurement, private business, and military technology transfers in Asia, Europe, and Africa and the Americas.

The Stoker-Grant collection disentangles the threads of diplomatic, domestic, political, and economic factors in explaining specific outcomes for each country. The research and conclusions are empirically and uniquely grounded in the archival evidence from the state and company records of the participants. Moreover, it advances academic and popular understanding of the arms trade in a number of significant ways. First, it elucidates the existing discussions of the arms race leading up to World War I by providing a longer-term context. In considering nearly a century and a half of case studies rather than a single decade, this work allows for a more accurate and non-polemical appraisal of the linkages between armaments and the outbreak of wars. An important collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with military history and business and political linkages in the global arms trade.