"In this book, Professor Dehio surveys the four and a half centuries that lie between Charles VIII's invasion of Italy and the end of the Second World War, and contrasts the drive for hegemony by successive aggressors (Spanish, French, German) with the opposing principle of balance which repeatedly called coalitions into being to save the continent from becoming subjected to a single political will. This pattern in Europe's history has become obsolete because as Professor Dehio shows, the states of Europe found it more and more difficult to thwart the ambitions of a Kaiser or a Hitler without calling upon outside help, so that by now power in Europe has passed from its own people to the greater peripheral empires."--From book jacket.