Rating: 
Summary: It makes you think.
Review: Rating history books is difficult because no author can ever explain what happened and why to everyones satisfaction. That is simply the nature of history, it is open for interpretation. So the most important thing to me about a book is if it gets me to think and consider other possibilities. This book met that criteria. Its premise is founded on economics and the balance between guns and butter. Basically the author claims that the rise and fall of all great powers has been the result of relative economic strength and how that economic strength was utilized. The book is well researched and written and makes a convincing case for the authors position. But is does make certain assumptions and generalizes some aspects of interaction between great powers that makes its premise debatable. However it is a fine piece of work and I would reccommend it to any student of history as an excellent primer. This book will make you think and even if you reject the author's thesis it is a great vehicle for helping to develop your own ideas.
Rating:
Summary: History doesn't Change, Only the Names do!
Review: Simply put I felt Kennedy's work was an in depth perspective, using historical evidence to support the adage, "How the Rise and Fall of Empires and People don't change, only the names and places do. You could write the same analogy 1000 years from now, and be in the black. But for those who need to wonder and reference on where we came from, how we got here, and where we are probably headed, Kennedy augments the paradigm of our species,ie.,the struggle for power, how to achieve it, keep it, and squander it. Put another way,the mechanics and dynamics of Machivelli's Prince, is as applicable today, as it was in 1513. Good reference material for doing an historical analysis. Robert
Rating: 
Summary: Great theory, but ... book badly in need of updating
Review: The problem with this book (and maybe why reviews are so divergent) is that it tries to be two different things. It succeeds as a historical narrative about the development of various western powers. The Hapsburgs, Napoleonic France, Czarist Russia, Prussia, Germany, and the British Empire are all covered. The Soviet Union, Japan and the U.S. come in for later treatment. The book traces the influence of finance, geography, politics and innovations and shows how advantages in each were strategically applied. It excells in describing the emergence of the western world from Empires and rising and falling 'Great' and 'Middle' powers involved in various alliances and coalition wars, through to the post Vietnam era of a bipolar world ruled by two Superpowers. Where the book fails is in economic forecasting specifically as it relates to the U.S. today.Four fifths of the book is good, as it is devoted to the development of Kennedys' theory, which is - economic wealth and military power is relative. Relative in terms of its distribution among nations and relative within a nation over time. Indeed, the U.K. of the 1980's and today,(a second rank power in comparison with the U.S and Japan) is wealthier in absolute terms than the huge British Empire of the late 19th century. The idea that that there is a strong relationship between economic power and military might, which seems obvious, is also illustrated with historical examples. What is less obvious (until shown by the author) are the variations on this theme. For example, an economic power may not also be a military power at the same time (Japan in the 1980's). There is also a tendency for declining economic powers to spend very heavily on the military, as their sense of security decreases (Soviet Union and U.S in the 1980's). It is this tendency the author states, that is a symptom of what is called 'imperial overstretch' and is a characteristic of ALL declining great powers. It is this argument and it's development in the last chapter, 'To the Twenty-first Century', where the book shows how outdated it is. To be fair, Kennedy is very clear in that he knows that writing about trends and projecting how they will play out in the future is NOT history. He states that "many a final chapter in works dealing with contemporary affairs has to be changed, only a few years later, in the wisdom of hindsight; it will be surprising if this present chapter survives unscathed". That was the most accurate statement in the last chapter. It is ironic that a history book has been treated so badly by history, but when you stop and think about all the events that have happened since the book was originally published in 1987, it's not so surprising. Obviously there is no analysis of the impact of the end of the Cold War, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany and most significantly from an economic point of view, the use of the 'peace dividend' to reinvigorate formerly heavily militarized economies. In general it is mostly a good book that suffers at the end from a brave but badly off target projection of what the 1990's had in store for the only remaining 'Great Power'.
Rating:
Summary: Econocentric theory in global strategic balancing
Review: Theories of historical causation and events must be accepted as just that - theories. Paul Kennedy's book is an outstanding rendering and in-depth examination of an econocentric historical world view. While there is obviously much to be critisized by many, the history of international politics demonstrates that his cold, hard, statistical basis for events in the history of strategic balancing are not far from the truth. Prof. Kennedy's lectures and seminars at Yale have sparked much debate there, notably in terms of the contrast of his econocentric views with those of ancient Greek historian and classicist, Prof. Donald Kagan, whose analysis of the origins of war (another great book) centers on the more human emotions of fear and honor in driving conflict. Whichever of these two views you adhere to, proper historical study demands that all theories be examined and either accepted or refuted on the basis of their arguments. Accordingly, I highly recommend Prof. Kennedy's book and his others relating to British Naval History for their elegantly precise mastery of the mechanisms behind the economic motives leading to war and peace.
Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood Theory but Good History and Reference
Review: This book is a bit dated by riding the 1980s fad of American declinism but not in the way most critics suggest. Kennedy did not help himself by his 1987 cover which showed Uncle Sam stepping down to make room for a rising Japan. However, many critical reviews apparently resulted from pontificators looking at the cover art and neglecting to read that stuff between the covers carefully. Although Nye (1990) later argued that US declinism was exaggerated by an unwarranted expectation that the US should retain its unnatural post-WWII apex, Kennedy himself suggested this 3 years earlier. Kennedy's "rise and fall" is not only boom and bust but also tidal ebbs and flows in relative power over time. Long before Nye, Kennedy described recent US "decline" as a return to its "natural" level and emphatically stated, "this reference to historical patterns does not imply that the United States is destined to shrink to the relative obscurity of former leading powers such as Spain or the Netherlands, or to disintegrate like the Roman and Austro-Hungarian empires" (1987 p.533, Kennedy's italics). Kennedy merely stated that the US could wane if it didn't mind itself. Theoretically, Kennedy took a systemic view over the "long cycle" to argue that broad patterns of financial and economic development (the primary independent variables, in academic jargon) determine the ebbs and flows of relative power (p.xv-xvi). For instance, he argued that although a US defeat at Midway in 1942 certainly would have altered the next year of the war, it would not have affected the final result (p.353). This is a systemic explanation which downplays the roles of individuals in the long-term. Fans of individual level analysis can take solace in a greater role for individuals in the short-term, and of individuals' ability to navigate within systemic constraints (p.540). Nonetheless, theory is not the strong point of the book. For instance, his attempt to explain the "constantly upward spiral" of the West as due to the innovation caused by competitive quarrels among small, European kingdoms and city-states, in contrast to the expansive unitary states of Asia (p.xvi-xvii), is troubled. Not only could one dispute the monolithic Asia characterization, but his reason does not explain why the warring American city-states did not result in Mayans, Aztecs and Incans as permanent members of the UN Security Council. His Europe-Asia dichotomy appears to be a difference misconstrued as a causal explanation. Instead of theory, the strength of this book is as a history. For instance, it shows that the majority of the world's manufacturing output was produced by the "Third World" as late as 1830, at which time per capita industrialization in continental Europe was closer to India's level than to Britain's level (p.149). Remember the other day when you couldn't quite recollect the exact figure for the Dutch military budget in 1622? This book would have saved you (it was 13.4 million Florins (p.69)). Even if many of the measures are estimates, I feel compelled to like a book which tells me the energy consumption of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1890 (19.7 million metric tons of coal equivalent (p.201)) or the per capita income of Bukovina in 1910 (310 Crowns (p.216)).
Rating:
Summary: an excercise in futility
Review: This book reveals a lot of research and studies and is well recommended. To me, the job of the historian is to look at historical events retrospectively and come up with viable analyses. This has been the case for Macaulay, Prescott, Trevelyan, Churchill and Barbara Tuchman, great historians of our times. We human beings are not gifted with crystal balls to foretell the future. Paul Kennedy tried to use past events to predict the future (to look prospectively). As things unfolded since the publication of this book, a lot of his predictions were false amd looked silly. More are likely to come. It is time for Mr Kennedy to realise that what he tried to do is an impossible task. Researching and studying an historial event could be a really great exercise - (for example, the Conquest of Mexico by Prescott, The River War by Churchill and the Guns of August by Tuchman)
Rating:
Summary: This book will get you thinking
Review: This book started my interest in history. I remember poring through the Indiana U. library searching for some of the titles in its massive bibliography after reading it with rapt awe. Only two things detract from its value: one, Kennedy's theory is so large that its "proof" becomes a massive recitation of statistics with little analysis of why the numbers are what they are; two, the post cold-war musings of the last chapter are woefully out-of-date. Still, any inquiry into European history after 1492 should begin with a persual of this volume.
Rating:
Summary: A Book About Historical Cycles
Review: This is a good book that reveals that there are cycles and trends that tend to have happened throughtout history to great nations. Kennedy discusses a pattern of roughly 500 years from one great culture to another, on the average. His writing, although interesting is somewhat pedantic and scattered. This is a good book for anyone interested in seeing a thread throughout time. Even though the torch has not been passed, who knows when the time for the USA to be yesterdays great power will be, who will take it's place?
Rating: 
Summary: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Review: This is one of the best books that I have read on global power. One of Kennedy's reoccurring themes is that a continuing strong economy is necessary to maintain a nation's standing. He values urbanization, industrialization, and per capita income. I particularly found his contrast and comparison on Russia and The United States in the 19th Century as emerging powers. His data on the results of Britian's "cutting edge" industrial revolution technology, and it's productive results, is unbelievable. I constantly go back to this book. It is not only a treasury of insight into past balance of power equations but also those of today.
Rating:
Summary: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Review: This is one of the best books that I have read on global power. One of Kennedy's reoccurring themes is that a continuing strong economy is necessary to maintain a nation's standing. He values urbanization, industrialization, and per capita income. I particularly found his contrast and comparison on Russia and The United States in the 19th Century as emerging powers. His data on the results of Britian's "cutting edge" industrial revolution technology, and it's productive results, is unbelievable. I constantly go back to this book. It is not only a treasury of insight into past balance of power equations but also those of today.
|
