The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490-1990

The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490-1990 PDF Author: Karen A. Rasler
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813184576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
In The Great Powers and Global Struggle, Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson focus on two themes: the rise and fall as well as the relative decline of major world powers over the past five hundred years, and the way in which these processes have set the stage for the outbreak of global war. Their interdisciplinary approach encompasses political science, economics, sociology, geography, and history. The most significant wars occur when regional leaders—historically in Western Europe—challenge global leaders. By studying the wars of Napoleon, Louis XIV, Phillip II and the Italian/Indian Ocean wars of the sixteenth century through World Wars I and II to the present, the authors challenge the long-held idea that prosperity leads to over-consumption and underinvestment and thus decline—a theory, traceable to ancient times, that remains the principal explanation for global decline today. Arguments about global structural change and its implications abound, but rarely is the abstract translated into concrete historical terms with emphases on specific actors and empirical documentation. Rasler and Thompson reinterpret the past five hundred years of major-power warfare and provide extensive tests of the eighteen generalizations critical to their argument. They conclude that those who argue that global war and repositioning are no longer a concern among the major powers lack critical understanding of the behavior that contributes to such conflict.

The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490-1990

The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490-1990 PDF Author: Karen A. Rasler
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813184576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Great Powers and Global Struggle, Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson focus on two themes: the rise and fall as well as the relative decline of major world powers over the past five hundred years, and the way in which these processes have set the stage for the outbreak of global war. Their interdisciplinary approach encompasses political science, economics, sociology, geography, and history. The most significant wars occur when regional leaders—historically in Western Europe—challenge global leaders. By studying the wars of Napoleon, Louis XIV, Phillip II and the Italian/Indian Ocean wars of the sixteenth century through World Wars I and II to the present, the authors challenge the long-held idea that prosperity leads to over-consumption and underinvestment and thus decline—a theory, traceable to ancient times, that remains the principal explanation for global decline today. Arguments about global structural change and its implications abound, but rarely is the abstract translated into concrete historical terms with emphases on specific actors and empirical documentation. Rasler and Thompson reinterpret the past five hundred years of major-power warfare and provide extensive tests of the eighteen generalizations critical to their argument. They conclude that those who argue that global war and repositioning are no longer a concern among the major powers lack critical understanding of the behavior that contributes to such conflict.

Bridges and Boundaries

Bridges and Boundaries PDF Author: Colin Elman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262550390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Bridges and Boundaries offers a conversation between what might loosely be described as traditionalist diplomatic and military historians, and political scientists who employ qualitative case study methods to examine international relations. The book opens with a series of chapters discussing differences, commonalities, and opportunities for cross-fertilization between the two disciplines.To help focus the dialogue on real events and research, the volume then revisits three empirical topics that have been studied at length by members of both disciplines: British hegemony in the nineteenth century; diplomacy in the interwar period and the causes of World War II; and the origins and course of the Cold War. For each of these subjects, a political scientist, a historian, and a commentator reflect on how disciplinary "guild rules" have shaped the study of international events. The book closes with incisive overviews by Robert Jervis and Paul W. Schroeder. Bridges and Boundaries explores how historians and political scientists can learn from one another and illustrates the possibilities that arise when open-minded scholars from different disciplines sit down to talk.

What Causes War?

What Causes War? PDF Author: Greg Cashman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742566528
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 621

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Book Description
Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, this classic text presents a comprehensive survey of the many alternative theories that attempt to explain the causes of interstate war. For each theory, Greg Cashman examines the arguments and counterarguments, considers the empirical evidence and counterevidence generated by social-science research, looks at historical applications of the theory, and discusses the theory’s implications for restraining international violence. Among the questions he explores are: Are humans aggressive by nature? Do individual differences among leaders matter? How might poor decision making procedures lead to war? Why do leaders engage in seemingly risky and irrational policies that end in war? Why do states with internal conflicts seem to become entangled in wars with their neighbors? What roles do nationalism and ethnicity play in international conflict? What kinds of countries are most likely to become involved in war? Why have certain pairs of countries been particularly war-prone over the centuries? Can strong states deter war? Can we find any patterns in the way that war breaks out? How do balances of power or changes in balances of power make war more likely? Do social scientists currently have an answer to the question of what causes war? Cashman examines theories of war at the individual, substate, nation-state, dyadic, and international systems level of analysis. Written in a clear and accessible style, this interdisciplinary text will be essential reading for all students of international relations.

Tokens of Power

Tokens of Power PDF Author: Ann Hironaka
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107175119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
What motivates going to war? This book reexamines how leaders make decisions based on appearances of power over military reality.

Inequality Beyond Globalization

Inequality Beyond Globalization PDF Author: Christian Suter
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 364380072X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
This volume debates the complex nature of the relationships between globalization, social and economic transformations and growing inequalities. Employing a global, world-historical and comparative perspective, the 16 articles brought together in this volume deal with three central questions: Firstly, the question of the spatio-temporal evolution and variations of growing inequalities, secondly, the relative importance of globalization as compared to other factors explaining growing inequalities and, thirdly, institutional variations of inequality dynamics and globalization impacts. Christian Suter is Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of NeuchÃ?Â[tel and President of the World Society Foundation, domiciled at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

War in a Changing World

War in a Changing World PDF Author: Zeev Maoz
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472111855
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Essays tracing the changing nature of war in relation to global and regional changes

Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery

Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery PDF Author: Leonid Grinin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319412620
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This thought-provoking monograph analyzes long- medium- and short-term global cycles of prosperity, recession, and depression, plotting them against centuries of important world events. Major research on economic and political cycles is integrated to clarify evolving relationships between the global center and its periphery as well as current worldwide economic upheavals and potential future developments. Central to this survey are successive waves of industrial and, later, technological and cybernetic progress, leading to the current era of globalization and the changes of the roles of both Western powers and former minors players, however that will lead to the formation of the world order without a hegemon. Additionally, the authors predict what they term the Great Convergence, the lessening of inequities between the global core and the rest of the world, including the wealth gap between First and Third World nations. Among the topics in this ambitious volume: · Why politics is often omitted from economic analysis. · Why economic cycles are crucial to understanding the modern geopolitical landscape. · How the aging of the developed world will affect world technological and economic future.“/p> · The evolving technological forecast for Global North and South. · Where the U.S. is likely to stand on the future world stage. Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery will inspire discussion and debate among sociologists, global economists, demographers, global historians, and futurologists. This expert knowledge is necessary for further research, proactive response, and preparedness for a new age of sociopolitical change.

War and the World

War and the World PDF Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300082851
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
An attempt to write a global history of warfare in the modern era. Jeremy Black, here presents a wide-ranging account of the nature, purpose and experience of war over the last half millennium.

The Emergence of the Global Political Economy

The Emergence of the Global Political Economy PDF Author: William Thompson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134610858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The Emergence of the Global Political Economy challenges the assumption that the international political economy is a recent phenomenon. Instead this volume asserts that the current global political economy began to take shape around 1500 and that some of today's key processes were already perceivable several hundred years ago. The book explains the interdependence between long-term economic growth, global political leadership and global war and how this interdependence has evolved over the last 500 years, and includes discussion of: *the ascendence of Western Europe and the significance of the 1490s *the military superiority thesis *sequences of leadership and of challenge to the global political economy *the importance of commodities from sugar and cloth to slaves and bullion *the Anglo-American rivalry until the First World War.

Systemic Transitions

Systemic Transitions PDF Author: W. Thompson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230618383
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
We are all familiar with the popular and academic analyses of the ongoing and future ascent of China. Two of the associated questions are whether and when China might succeed the United States as the lead state in the world system. These are interesting questions, albeit ones that are not likely to be answered in the immediate future. An alternative focus examines instead periods of systemic transition - eras in which it is conceivable that a new leader might emerge at the expense of an older system leader. Framing the question this way presumes that a) future systemic transitions remain a possibility and b) transitions do not occur abruptly but may require several decades to set up structural situations in which a transition might take place. Neither of these assumptions are carved in stone and are open to question. It may be that future systemic transitions are unlikely. Or, it may be that they will not occur as they have in the past. All of these possibilities are assessed from a variety of different perspectives.