Owen Grey's new book helps explain how small states form alliances with one another and on how limited their choices are when faced with major geopolitical threats. He shows how limited the options available to diplomats and statesmen were and gets inside the decision-making process to explain why they made the choices they did. Seeing the Little Entente as a mediating factor in Romanian diplomacy that both limited and enhanced the country's options is a major contribution to the literature and makes for some stimulating analysis.

Roland Clark, Chair of Modern European History, University of Liverpool

Owen Grey's authoritative study of Romania's part in the Little Entente, formed in 1920 and 1921 by Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia to counter the possibility of Hungarian aggression, goes beyond the confines of providing analysis of what to date has often been considered a diplomatic footnote, to pose fundamental issues which have a relevance today, namely the tension between national sovereignty and regional cooperation, between the aspiration for security and the constraints of geopolitics, and the position of smaller states in international relations. Based upon an impressive range of archival sources, the author provides a unique case study of states addressing structural limits in pursuit of survival and independence.

Prof. Dr Dennis Deletant OBE, Emeritus Professor, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London

Taken as a whole, Romania, the Little Entente and the Struggle for Europe represents a significant historiographical achievement, valuable both to the academic community and to all those interested in the diplomatic history of Europe. Engaging and insightful, Owen Grey's book deserves the best fate any scholarly work can have: to be read, translated, and included in as many libraries as possible.

Professor Dr. Marcela Salagean, BabesBolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Using a wide range of primary, unpublished sources, particularly from the Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Owen Grey's book provides a nuanced analysis of the diplomatic, economic, and political challenges faced by Romania and its allies, illustrating the fragility of alliances and the precarious position of small states in a volatile international environment.

Owen Grey is the first non-Romanian historian to successfully unravel the complex developments in Romanian foreign policy during the interwar period. With moderation and attention to nuance, the author accomplishes a tour de force in the analysis of an intricate diplomatic history.

Lucian Leustean, Faculty of History of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania

A fresh and welcome perspective on what once seemed an exhausted topic – the quest to build a lasting collective security in a much-tried region of the European continent at a time when this was but an ideal. Romania's policy within the Little Entente – its forgotten interwar alliance with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia – is analysed here using the contemporary methods specific to the study of international relations, but based on complex documentation which includes archives and numerous works on social, cultural, identity, and economic developments. A mandatory entry in any future bibliography for researchers of Central and Eastern European interwar history.

Alexandru-Murad Mironov, Assistant Professor, University of Bucharest