Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

The First World War left a changed world in its wake, a shattered Europe and defeated Germany,

but it also brutally shook the kaleidoscope of global power and War left a changed world in its wake, a shattered Europe and defeated Germany,

but it also brutally shook the kaleidoscope of global power and saw America emerge onto the world stage.

In today's programme, we gather guests, who in their various ways

are experts on the shifting nature of great power status

since World War I began 100 years ago. And we'll be asking to what

extent global circumstances today, mirror those left behind by what was optimistically called

the war to end all wars. Margaret Macmillan is the author of the war that ended peace. She joins

us on the line from Oxford. Adam Tuse has written the Deluge, The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order, and he's in Berlin.

Jonathan Powell is Tony Blair's former Chief of Staff and now heads the Conflict Resolution Charity Intermediate.

And Orlando Fijers is author of numerous books on Russian history, most recently Revolutionary Russia, 1891 to 1991. Margaret, turning to

you first, what were the great powers at the time of the outbreak of the First World War?

Well, they were all European pretty much, with the exception of the United States and Japan,

which was beginning to become a world power, but hadn't yet reached it.

And so the main ones, of course, Britain and the British Empire was, if you want to think of it,

the great power of the 19th century.

Germany was a rising power.

Once it had unified, it was becoming very strong economically and had a very strong army.

Russia was developing very, very fast.

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