This new collection focuses on its international political and strategic dimensions from the 1860s to the 1930s. It examines them as objects of the Great Powers' political and economic rivalries and as tools of power projection, strategic mobilization and imperial defence.

1. 'Railpolitik': An Introduction 2. Railroads, the Prussian Army, and the German Way of War in the Nineteenth Century 3. 'The Most Catastrophic Question': Railway Development and Military Strategy in Late Imperial Russia 4. The Sanjak of Novibazar Railway Project 5. The Railway-Oceanic Era, the India-China and India-Singapore Railway Schemes, and Siam 6. 'The Baghdad Railway of the Far East': The Tientsin-Yangtze Railway and Anglo-German Relations, 1898-1914 7. Lord Curzon and British Strategic Railways in Central Asia Before, During and After World War I 8. The Baghdad to Haifa Railway: The Culmination of Railway Planning for Imperial Defence East of Suez 9. Managing the Hajj: Indian Pilgrim Traffic, Public Health, and Transportation in Arabia, 1918-1930 10. Barometer of War: British Views of Imperial Security in the Far East, Russo-Japanese Relations and the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1929-1935 11. Swiss-Transalpine Railway Lines: Strategic Railways and the Strategy of Deterrence