The Rise and Fall of World Orders

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Manchester University Press, 1999 - History - 324 pages
Drawing in lessons from 400 years of Great-Power politics, this volume challenges both the "declinist" arguments and the overstretched hypothesis of Paul Kennedy to develop an alternative approach to the debate on the rise and fall of the Great Powers. The first half of the book compares the Spanish, Dutch and the First and Second British world orders. It identifies their common features in order to find the most salient causes for their rise as world powers, and the most probable reasons for their decline. The second half of the book addresses the American world order in the 20th century, from Pax Americana to the End of US Hegemony. The author sees the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the resurgence of the US as evidence of the role played by normative dimensions, commonly underestimated in International Relations analysis. Theoretically challenging, Knutsen's volume provides a fresh approach to debates in international relations aimed at both students and scholars.
 

Contents

the rise and fall of great powers
1
The wave of great wars
21
The phase of hegemony
41
The phase of challenge
73
The phase of disruptive competition
90
The rise and fall of world orders
140
Wars to end all wars
173
Pax Americana
189
Challenges responses and nuclear weapons
219
The end of US hegemony?
238
and then there was one
259
Bibliography
304
Index
317
140
318
Copyright

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About the author (1999)

Torbjorn L. Knutsen is a Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, University of Trondheim.

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