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

 

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Page 89
Furthermore , every war against the maritime powers involved a certain division
of French energies and attention from the continent , and thus made a successful
land campaign less likely . Torn between fighting in Flanders , Germany , and ...
Page 96
... nation be so situated that it is neither forced to defend itself by land nor induced
to seek extension of its territory by way of land , it has , by the very unity of its aim
directed upon the sea , an advantage as compared with a people one of whose ...
Page 106
The balance of power was secure on land , while at sea Britain was
unchallenged . Small wonder that the Whigs , who returned to office on George I '
s accession in 1714 , were soon anxious to preserve the Utrecht settlement and
were even ...

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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

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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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