The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

Front Cover
Vintage Books, 1989 - Business & Economics - 677 pages
2 Reviews
With 200,000 hardcover copies in print, this book has received worldwide attention. Kennedy explains how the various world powers have risen and fallen over the five centuries since the formation of the "new monarchies" in Western Europe.

From inside the book

 

Results 1-3 of 92

Page 65
improvements of the cavalry and introduction of mobile , light artillery , and finally
in the discipline and high morale which his leadership gave to the army ,
Gustavus had at his command perhaps the best fighting force in the world when
he ...
Page 136
Of the more than 600 , 000 men in the Grand Army , only 270 , 000 of that total
were Frenchmen , the same number as remained in the Peninsula . Furthermore ,
since " native ” Frenchmen now included the Belgians , Dutch , and many Italians
 ...
Page 301
62 Because of conscription , the Japanese army had ready access to manpower
and could ingrain the recruits into its traditions of absolute obedience and mass
maximum effort . While it had kept the size of the army limited in earlier years , its
 ...

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The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Yale historian Kennedy surveys the ebb and flow of power among the major states of Europe from the 16th centurywhen Europe's preeminence first took shapethrough and beyond the present erawhen great ... Read full review

User Review - Flag as inappropriate

Learning from History, July 19, 2003
<P>
Kennedy chronicles the rise of the Great Powers starting with the Ming Dynasty in China and taking us all the way to the contemporary times of the 1980s.
By analyzing world history through the prisms of economical, political, and military status of each great rising power, Kennedy fuses a theory of why certain countries throughout history (1500-present) rose to be regional or world powers and why they later collapsed.
<P>
As the other reviewers noted, Kennedy's book falls short of accurately predicting the changes that were to follow the publication date of his book (fall of Russia, Asian market crises). Nevertheless this book is a valuable historical resource. 

Contents

The Rise of the Western World
3
World Power Centers in the Sixteenth Century
5
2
18
Copyright

32 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Paul Kennedy
Limited preview - 2010
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict ...
Paul M. Kennedy
Snippet view - 1987
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict ...
Paul M. Kennedy
Snippet view - 1987
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Common terms and phrases

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References to this book

About the author (1989)

Paul Kennedy is the author or editor of thirteen books, including Preparing for the Twenty-first Century and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which has been translated into more than twenty languages. He serves on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and several other publications. Educated at Newcastle University and Oxford University, he is a former fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University and of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung in Bonn.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
TitleThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000
History/Political Science
AuthorsPaul Kennedy, Paul M. Kennedy, Professor Paul Kennedy
Editionillustrated
PublisherVintage Books, 1989
Original fromthe University of California
Digitized8 Sep 2008
ISBN0679720197, 9780679720195
Length677 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Business & Economics / Economic History
History / Modern / 20th Century
History / World
  
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