Part I. Overview of debates about the causes of the First World War -- Introduction: historians, political scientists, and the causes of the First World War / Jack S. Levy and John A. Vasquez -- July 1914 revisited and revised: the erosion of the German paradigm / Samuel R. Williamson -- Part II. Structure and agency -- Strategic rivalries and complex causality in 1914 / Karen Rasler and William R. Thompson -- "A formidable factor in European politics": views of Russia in 1914 / T. G. Otte -- Part II. The question of preventive war -- Restraints on preventive war before 1914 / William Mulligan -- The sources of preventive logic in German decision-making in 1914 / Jack S. Levy -- IR theory and the three great puzzles of the great war / Dale C. Copeland -- Was the First World War a preventive war? Concepts, criteria, and evidence / John A. Vasquez -- Part IV. The role of the other powers -- War accepted but unsought: Russia's growing militancy and the July Crisis, 1914 / Ronald Park Bobroff -- France's unreadiness for war in 1914 and its implications for French decision making in the July Crisis / John Keiger.