The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000With 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 82
of the public at large , the sheer extent and destructive capacity of the nuclear
weaponry held in these two arsenals is an indication of political incapacity or
mental sickness , which threatens all daily life on this planet and should be
abolished ...
In other words , the vast nuclear armories of each superpower will continue to
exist , but ( barring an accidental " triggering " ) they are in all likelihood unusable
, because they contradict the ancient assumption that in war , as in most other ...
17ff ; R . L . Garthoff , Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age ( New York , 1958 ) ,
passim ; H . S . Dinerstein , War and the Soviet Union ( London , 1962 edn . ) ,
especially chs . 1 - 6 . 82 . Prados , Soviet Estimate , pp . 17 - 18 ; Freedman ,
Evolution ...
What people are saying - Write a review
The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictYale 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
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
Common terms and phrases
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 History/Political Science |
| Authors | Paul Kennedy, Paul M. Kennedy, Professor Paul Kennedy |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Vintage Books, 1989 |
| Original from | the University of California |
| Digitized | 8 Sep 2008 |
| ISBN | 0679720197, 9780679720195 |
| Length | 677 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Economic History History / Modern / 20th Century History / World |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |