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''The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000'', by
Paul Kennedy Paul Michael Kennedy (born 17 June 1945) is a British historian specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He is on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and writes for ''The New Y ...
, first published in 1987, explores the politics and economics of the
Great Power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...
s from 1500 to 1980 and the reason for their decline. It then continues by forecasting the positions of
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
,
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...
(EEC), the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and the United States through the end of the 20th century.


Summary

Kennedy argues that the strength of a Great Power can be properly measured only relative to other powers, and he provides a straightforward thesis: Great Power ascendancy (over the long term or in specific conflicts) correlates strongly to available resources and economic durability; military overstretch and a concomitant relative decline are the consistent threats facing powers whose ambitions and security requirements are greater than their resource base can provide for. Throughout the book he reiterates his early statement (page 71): "Military and naval endeavors may not always have been the ''raison d'être'' of the new nations-states, but it certainly was their most expensive and pressing activity", and it remains such until the power's decline. He concludes that declining countries can experience greater difficulties in balancing their preferences for guns, butter and investments. Kennedy states his theory in the second paragraph of the introduction as follows: Kennedy adds on the same page:


Early modern era

The book starts at the dividing line between the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and early modern history—1500 (chapter 1). It briefly discusses the Ming (page 4) and
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
worlds (page 9) of the time and the rise of the western powers relative to them (page 16). The book then proceeds chronologically, looking at each of the power shifts over time and the effect on other Great Powers and the "
Middle Power A middle power is a state that is not a superpower or a great power, but still exerts influence and plays a significant role in international relations. These countries often possess certain capabilities, such as strong economies, advanced tech ...
s". Kennedy uses a number of measures to indicate real, relative and potential strength of nations throughout the book. He changes the metric of power based on the point in time. Chapter 2, "The
Habsburg The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...
Bid for Mastery, 1519–1659" emphasizes the role of the "manpower revolution" in changing the way Europeans fought wars (see
military revolution The Military Revolution is the theory that a series of radical changes in military strategy and tactics during the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in major lasting changes in governments and society. The theory was introduced by Michael Roberts ...
). This chapter also emphasizes the importance of Europe's political boundaries in shaping a political balance of power.


European imperialism

The Habsburg failure segues into the thesis of chapter 3, that financial power reigned between 1660 and 1815, using
Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
,
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
, and Russia to contrast between powers that could finance their wars (Britain and France) and powers that needed financial patronage to mobilize and maintain a major military force on the field. Kennedy presents a table (page 81, table 2) of "British Wartime Expenditures and Revenue"; between 1688 and 1815 is especially illustrative, showing that Britain was able to maintain loans at around one-third of British wartime expenditures throughout that period * Total wartime expenditures, 1688–1815: £2,293,483,437 * Total income: £1,622,924,377 * Balance raised by loans: £670,559,060 * Loans as per cent of expenditure: 33.3% The chapter also argues that British financial strength was the single most decisive factor in its victories over France during the 18th century. This chapter ends on the
Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
and the fusion of British financial strength with a newfound industrial strength.


Industrial Revolution

Kennedy's next two chapters depend greatly upon Bairoch's calculations of
industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...
, measuring all nations by an
index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...
, where 100 is the British per capita industrialization rate in 1900. The United Kingdom grows from 10 in 1750, to 16 in 1800, 25 in 1830, 64 in 1860, 87 in 1880, to 100 in 1900 (page 149). In contrast, France's per capita industrialization was 9 in 1750, 9 in 1800, 12 in 1830, 20 in 1860, 28 in 1880, and 39 in 1900. Relative shares of world manufacturing output (also first appearing on page 149) are used to estimate the peaks and troughs of power for major states. China, for example, begins with 32.8% of global manufacturing in 1750 and plummets after the
First Opium War The First Opium War ( zh, t=第一次鴉片戰爭, p=Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Chinese Qing dynasty between 1839 and 1 ...
,
Second Opium War The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or ''Arrow'' War, was fought between the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major ...
and
Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of ...
to 19.7% of global manufacturing in 1860, and 12.5% in 1880 (compared to the UK's 1.9% in 1750, growing to 19.9% in 1860, and 22.9% in 1880).


20th century

Measures of strength in the 20th century (pages 199–203) use population size,
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation in British English) is the population shift from Rural area, rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. ...
rates, Bairoch's per capita levels of industrialization, iron and steel production, energy consumption (measured in millions of metric tons of coal equivalent), and total industrial output of the powers (measured against Britain's 1900 figure of 100), to gauge the strength of the various great powers. Kennedy also emphasizes productivity increase, based on systematic interventions, which led to economic growth and prosperity for great powers in the 20th century. He compares the great powers at the close of the 20th century. Kennedy predicts the decline of the United States and the Soviet Union. Kennedy predicts the rise of Japan and struggles and potential for the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...
(EEC). Kennedy predicts the rise of China, stating that if kept up, its economic development would change the country in decades and it would become a
great power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...
. He highlights the precedent of the Four Modernizations in
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...
's plans for China—agriculture, industry, science and military—de-emphasizing military, while the United States and Soviet Union are emphasizing it. He predicts that continued
deficit spending Within the budgetary process, deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit, the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budg ...
, especially on military build-up, will be the single most important reason for decline of any great power.


The United States

From the Civil War to the first half of the 20th century, the United States' economy benefited from high agricultural production, plentiful raw materials, technological advancements and financial inflows. During this time the U.S. did not have to contend with foreign dangers. From 1860 to 1914, U.S. exports increased sevenfold, resulting in huge trade surpluses. By 1945 the U.S. both enjoyed high
productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proce ...
and was the only major industrialized nation intact after
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. From the 1960s onward, the U.S. saw a relative decline in its share of world production and trade. By the 1980s, the U.S. experienced declining exports of agricultural and manufactured goods. In the space of a few years, the U.S. went from being the largest creditor to the largest debtor nation. At the same time, the federal debt was growing at an increasing pace. This situation is typical of declining hegemons. The United States has the typical problems of a great power, which include balancing guns and butter and
investment Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broade ...
s for economic growth. The U.S.' growing military commitment to every continent (other than
Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
) and the growing cost of military hardware severely limit available options. Kennedy compares the U.S.' situation to Great Britain's prior to
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. He comments that the map of U.S. bases is similar to Great Britain's before World War I. As military expenses grow, this reduces investments in economic growth, which eventually "leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense". Kennedy's advice is as follows:


Upward Spiral

''Upward Spiral'' is a term used by Paul Kennedy in his book ''The Rise and Fall of Great Powers'' to describe the continually rising cost of military equipment relative to civilian manufactured goods. According to Kennedy there is an upward spiral at work in "all areas" of military production which is "becoming increasingly divergent from the commercial". The desire for state-of-the-art weaponry is meant to be pushing up the cost.Kennedy, 1989, pp. 570-1. Writing in the late 1980s he said it was reasonable to assume that the next few decades would witness "the spiralling cost of the arms race, which is fuelled by the sheer expensiveness of newer weapons systems as well as by international rivalries." Quoting the comment of
Peter Mathias Peter Mathias, (10 January 1928 – 1 March 2016) was a British economic historian and the former Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford. His research focused on the history of industry, Business history, business, ...
that "One of the few constancies in history... is that the scale of commitment on military spending has always risen" Kennedy argues that this has become more important with time. According to Kennedy, "if that was true for the wars and arms races of the eighteenth century, when weapons technology changed only slowly, it is much truer of the present century 0th when each new generation of aircraft, warships and tanks is vastly more expensive than preceding ones, even when allowance is made for inflation."Kennedy, 1989, p. 570. Kennedy uses several examples. While a pre-1914
battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
cost the
British Admiralty The Admiralty was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom that was responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. Historically, its titular head was the Lord High Admiral of the ...
2.5 million pounds ( Taking inflation into account this would be approximately 56 million pounds in 1980 terms), by the 1980s 120 million pounds was needed to buy a replacement
frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...
. Another is that of the American B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber whose cost rose into the 1990s.


Table of contents

* Strategy and Economics in the Preindustrial World **The Rise of the Western World **The Habsburg Bid for Mastery, 1519–1659 **Finance, Geography, and the Winning of Wars, 1660–1815 * Strategy and Economics in the Industrial Era **Industrialization and the Shifting Global Balances, 1815–1885 **The Coming of a Bipolar World and the Crisis of the "Middle Powers": Part One, 1885–1918 **The Coming of a Bipolar World and the Crisis of the "Middle Powers": Part Two, 1919–1942 * Strategy and Economics Today and Tomorrow **Stability and Change in a Bipolar World, 1943–1980 **To the Twenty-first Century


Maps, tables and charts

The book has twelve maps, forty-nine tables and three charts to assist the reader in understanding the text.


Publication data

''The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers'' is the eighth and best-known book by historian
Paul Kennedy Paul Michael Kennedy (born 17 June 1945) is a British historian specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He is on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and writes for ''The New Y ...
. It reached number six on the list of best-selling hardcover books for 1988. In 1988 the author was awarded the Wolfson History Prize for this work. Republished: January 1989, Paperback, , 704 pages


See also

*
Great power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...
* '' The Rise of the Great Powers'' *
Upward Spiral ''The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000'', by Paul Kennedy, first published in 1987, explores the politics and economics of the Great Powers from 1500 to 1980 and the reason for their decl ...
*
List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita These are lists of regions and countries by their estimated Real versus nominal value, real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the value of all final goods and services produced within a country/reg ...
* Economic history of the United States *
Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
*
Historic recurrence Historic recurrence is the repetition of similar events in history. The concept of historic recurrence has variously been applied to overall human history (''e.g.'', to the rises and falls of empires), to repetitive patterns in the history of ...
* Ideocracy *
State collapse State collapse is a sudden dissolution of a sovereign state. It is often used to describe extreme situations in which state institutions dissolve rapidly. When a new regime moves in, often led by the military, civil society typically fails to ...


References

*Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (London: Fontana, 1989). *
Peter Mathias Peter Mathias, (10 January 1928 – 1 March 2016) was a British economic historian and the former Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford. His research focused on the history of industry, Business history, business, ...
, First Industrial Nation: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1914 (London, 1969).


External links

*
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
' on
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Imperial Cycles: Bucks, Bullets and Bust
January 10, 1988, ''New York Times Book Review'', requires registration.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers, The 1987 non-fiction books Books about civilizations Books by Paul Kennedy Political realism History of international relations Books about geopolitics Books about wealth distribution Random House books