" 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.
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