The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

Paul Kennedy’s international bestseller is a sweeping account of five hundred years of fluctuating economic muscle and military might, explaining the journey to the present among the great powers of the world.Kennedy’s masterwork begins in the year 1500, at a time of various great centres of power including Minh China, the Ottomans, the rising Mughal state, the nations of Europe. But it was the latter which, through competition, economic growth and better military organisation, came to dominate the globe – until challenged later by Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Now China, boosted by its own economic prowess, rises to the fore. Throughout this brilliant w…