World power or decline : the controversy over Germany's aims in the First World War / Fritz Fischer ; translated by Lancelot L. Farrar, Robert Kimber, and Rita Kimber.

Translation of: Weltmacht oder Niedergang.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

World policy and war policy: Germany's persisting desire for world power -- The July crisis: a provocation to war -- The September program: not an insignificant interlude but a blueprint for world power -- Not a succession of crises but the persisting desire for power -- The pursuit of world power: commitment, not reaction -- Not Bethmann Hollweg's aims but Germany's aims -- Victory: preservation of the conservative system, not its abolition -- The theory of English war guilt / Egmont Zechlin -- The historian's concern for the present / Gerhard Ritter.