HemGrupperDiskuteraMerTidsandan
Sök igenom hela webbplatsen
Denna webbplats använder kakor för att fungera optimalt, analysera användarbeteende och för att visa reklam (om du inte är inloggad). Genom att använda LibraryThing intygar du att du har läst och förstått våra Regler och integritetspolicy. All användning av denna webbplats lyder under dessa regler.

Resultat från Google Book Search

Klicka på en bild för att gå till Google Book Search.

Laddar...

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987)

av Paul Kennedy

Andra författare: Jean-Paul Tremblay (Maps)

Andra författare: Se under Andra författare.

MedlemmarRecensionerPopularitetGenomsnittligt betygOmnämnanden
2,917204,759 (4.02)42
Bl a granskas USA:s roll som nutidens främsta stormakt och jämförs med historiska imperier som Spanien och Storbritannien.
Laddar...

Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken.

Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken.

» Se även 42 omnämnanden

Visa 1-5 av 20 (nästa | visa alla)
Ӕ
  AnkaraLibrary | Feb 29, 2024 |
Handelt eigenlijk vooral (zoals een ondertitel suggereert) over vijf eeuwen oorlog. Er werden enkele onbekende, nog verder te onderzoeken zaken in gevonden: in Rusland zou er (voor de revolutie) een belangrijk systeem van gemeeschappelijk grondbezit bestaan hebben (naast het lijfeigenschap?); was België neutraal in de jaren 1930 en heeft dit een belangrijke invloed gehad op de Franse militaire politiek?
  Roland_Rotsaert | Jul 13, 2022 |
A jelző, ami eszembe jut, a "tárgyszerű". Tárgyszerű fizikai értelemben, a maga hatszáz sűrűn szedett oldalával, a bő száz oldalas jegyzettel a végén, egyszóval: egész böszme testi valójában. És tárgyszerű mint szöveg is, mondhatni, semmi extra, csak épp összefoglalása a komplett emberi történelemnek a XVI. századtól napjainkig. Kennedy tulajdonképpen a birodalmak életciklusait írja meg - ahogy egyszer csak kinőnek a földből, mint a gomba, burjánzanak picit, aztán idővel összeasznak oly apróra, hogy az első szél elsodorja őket a semmibe. Honnan jön hatalmuk és hová megy, ez itt a kérdés.

Hogy honnan jön, az egyszerű, és rég tudjuk: a pénzből, a pénzből és a pénzből. Amivel Kennedy felspécizte ezt a gondolatot, az "csupán" eme felhajtóerő komplex volta: annak leírása, hogy nem elég, ha egy állam pusztán meggazdagszik, hanem gazdaságát megfelelően kell hatalommá alakítania - döntenie kell, hogy akkor ágyú vagy vaj, azaz védelembe, fogyasztásba esetleg befektetésbe forgatja vissza termelékenységét. És az, hogy melyik mellett dönt egy adott történelmi kontextusban, jövőjét határozza meg.

A kötet külön értéke, hogy a szerző a birodalmakat nem külön-külön, hanem együtt, egymással való viszonyukon keresztül vizsgálja. Így aztán észreveszi azt, ami mások számára talán nem nyilvánvaló: hogy egy hatalmi gócpont nem akkor kezd el veszíteni jelentőségéből, amikor termelékenysége abszolút értékben csökken, hanem ezt mindig megelőzi egy relatív, a feltörekvő hatalmi gócpontokhoz viszonyított csökkenés. Ez így belegondolva talán nyilvánvalónak tűnik, de ezért tudja Kennedy még a Szovjetunió (és ezzel a kétpólusú világrend) összeomlása előtt prognosztizálni az ázsiai óriás, Kína felemelkedését.

Adnék én rá öt csillagot is, mert szaglik a könyvről saját jelentősége, és az, hogy Kennedy beleadott apait-anyait. De valahogy olyan érzésem van - bizonytalan és homályos érzület, bevallom -, hogy ezeket a dolgokat valahol már hallottam. Bizonyára ez pont a könyv jelentőségének tudható be: annyira fontos, hogy legfőbb állításai evidenciaként beépültek utód-könyveibe, és ettől nemzőatyjuk (ez a könyv) valahogy idejétmúlttá vált. Talán ezért, talán másért, de nem érzem, hogy máshogy látnám elolvasása után a világot. ( )
  Kuszma | Jul 2, 2022 |
Worth every page. Sometimes things get clearer when viewed from a distance, exact details of events change and are unpredictable but overall arches even if not exactly following the projected curves are slow to turn. I'm not a great explainer but the author of this book is. ( )
  Paul_S | Dec 23, 2020 |
One of those magisterial overviews of five centuries of world history. Paul Kennedy does a very good job with a quasi-Marxian approach to this, in that economics do in large part determine the trajectory of nations (e.g., a materialist explanation).

While Kennedy admits that earlier history is not his area of expertise, he does a decent job explaining how the "east" fell behind, given the increasing insularity of Ming China and the internecine struggles in South and East Asia that consumed resources and attention. It's not a wholly convincing explanation but other historians have done a fairly good job examining this; I am reminded mainly of Kenneth Pomeranz's counterfactual essay in Unmaking the West, "Without Coal? Colonies? Calculus?: Counterfactuals and Industrialization in Europe and China."

But to return to Kennedy, he has written a remarkable qualitative history based on ballpark quantitative statistics, which is an approach I can very much get behind. Relative national "incomes" in the seventeenth century, for instance, are exceedingly difficult to find data for, much less calculate. And yet Kennedy manages to paint a convincing picture of ebbs and flows in currencies and commodities, in relative power balances and military expenditures, tracing continuities in national approaches towards almost the present day.

It is here that perhaps reviewers have, with the benefit of hindsight, come to blame Kennedy for his failure of prescience. Indeed, he comes close to an accurate prediction in terms of the overall trajectory of Russia, but in the specifics (i.e., the collapse of the Soviet Union), he just misses the mark:

On the other hand, the Soviet war machine also has its own weaknesses and problems ... Since the dilemmas which face the strategy-makers of the other large Powers of the globe are also being pointed out in this chapter, it is only proper to draw attention to the great variety of difficulties confronting Russia's military-political leadership - without, however, jumpting to the opposite conclusion that the Soviet Union is therefore unlikely to 'survive' for very long. [Emphasis in original]


Kennedy was writing in 1987, just two years before the overthrow of Communism in much of eastern Europe, and four before the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. But despite failing to predict its collapse, he nevertheless successfully identified a downwards socioeconomic and geopolitical trajectory for Russia that has since been proven accurate. Similarly, Kennedy's prognosis for the United States seems, especially now, to have been borne out, almost frighteningly so:

Although the United States is at present still in a class of its own economically and perhaps even militarily, it cannot avoid confronting the two great tests which challenge the longevity of every major power that occupies the 'number one' problem in world affairs: whether, in the military/strategical realm, it can preserve a reasonable balance between the nation's perceived defense requirements and the means it possesses to maintain those commitments; and whether, as an intimately related point, it can preserve the technological and economic bases of its power from relative erosion in the face of the ever-shifting patterns of global production. This test of American abilities will be the greater because it...is the inheritor of a vast array of strategical commitments had been made decades earlier ... In consequence, the United States now runs the risk, so familiar to historians of the rise and fall of previous Great Powers, of what roughly might be called 'imperial overstretch'.


And though he never quite describes it as a future strategic competitor (and, to be fair, it is only in the past fifteen years that the contours of Sino-American relations have really begun to solidify), it is clear to Kennedy that the eventual rise of China is perpetually lurking in the background. "The most decisive" international fissure of the Cold War, he writes, "was the split between the USSR and Communist China," which served to make even that era less of a totally bipolar system than is typically conceived of. China is one of five extant or emerging power centers he identifies, and sees a gradually strengthening power with some of the highest growth rates on Earth - this towards the tail end of Deng's rule, before it really took off.

And so, what then for the United States? In keeping with his theme of "imperial overstretch," Kennedy points out that the United States in 1987 had "roughly the same massive array of military obligations across the globe as it had a quarter-century [prior], when its shares of world GNP, manufacturing production, military spending, and armed forces personnel were so much larger." All the military services will inevitably demand more resources and cry poverty, yes, but that is because what passes for American "statecraft" in the 21st century manages to avoid any hard decisions, any downscaling of commitments, and any meaningful reassessment of available ways and means - with an eye towards determining commensurate ends.

Here again, Kennedy is prescient: "an American polity which responds to external challenges by increasing defense expenditures and reacts to the budgetary crisis by slashing the existing social expenditures, may run the risk of provoking an eventual political backlash." We've almost certainly watched that unfold in the years since 2001. In keeping with the rest of Rise and Fall, the United States is in fact headed for decline, but in a relative sense, one that is manageable if approached reasonably. This doesn't single out the country; instead it might be seen (and is by Kennedy) as a reversion to the mean:

It may be argued that the geographical extent, population, and resources of the United States suggest that it ought to possess perhaps 16 or 18 percent of the world's wealth and power, but because of historical and technical circumstances favorable to it, that share rose to 40 percent or more by 1945; and what we are witnessing at the moment is the early decades of the ebbing away from that extraordinarily high figure to a more 'natural' share.


Kennedy also offers a warning: "the task facing American statesmen over the next decades, therefore...is a need to 'manage' affairs to that the relative erosion of the United States' position takes place slowly and smoothly, and is not accelerated by policies which bring merely short-term advantage but longer-term disadvantage." This is wise counsel for the years ahead, as the unipolar moment continues to rapidly fade. But if this is the predominant challenge to the United States in the 21st century - a superpower in decline - than so far we have surely failed to meet it. ( )
1 rösta goliathonline | Jul 7, 2020 |
Visa 1-5 av 20 (nästa | visa alla)
inga recensioner | lägg till en recension

» Lägg till fler författare (39 möjliga)

Författarens namnRollTyp av författareVerk?Status
Paul Kennedyprimär författarealla utgåvorberäknat
Tremblay, Jean-PaulMapsmedförfattarealla utgåvorbekräftat
Cellino, AndreaÖversättaremedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Migone, Gian GiacomoFörordmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Du måste logga in för att ändra Allmänna fakta.
Mer hjälp finns på hjälpsidan för Allmänna fakta.
Vedertagen titel
Originaltitel
Alternativa titlar
Första utgivningsdatum
Personer/gestalter
Viktiga platser
Viktiga händelser
Relaterade filmer
Motto
Dedikation
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta. Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
to Cath
Inledande ord
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta. Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
[Introduction] This is a book about national and international power in the "modern"--that is post-Renaissance--period.
In the year 1500, the date chosen by numerous scholars to mark the divide between modern and premodern times, it was by no means obvious to the inhabitants of Europe that their continent was poised to dominate much of the rest of the earth.
[Epilogue] After a five-hundred-year survey of the rise and fall of the Great Powers within the international system, and methodology,in which the author would engage the proliferating theories upon "war and the cycle of relative power," "global wars, public debts, and the long cycle," "the size an duration of empires," sense of the whole and --usually--to suggest implications for the future.
Citat
Avslutande ord
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta. Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
(Klicka för att visa. Varning: Kan innehålla spoilers.)
(Klicka för att visa. Varning: Kan innehålla spoilers.)
(Klicka för att visa. Varning: Kan innehålla spoilers.)
Särskiljningsnotis
Förlagets redaktörer
På omslaget citeras
Ursprungsspråk
Kanonisk DDC/MDS
Kanonisk LCC
Bl a granskas USA:s roll som nutidens främsta stormakt och jämförs med historiska imperier som Spanien och Storbritannien.

Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas.

Bokbeskrivning
Haiku-sammanfattning

Pågående diskussioner

Ingen/inga

Populära omslag

Snabblänkar

Betyg

Medelbetyg: (4.02)
0.5
1 4
1.5
2 9
2.5 2
3 45
3.5 19
4 101
4.5 22
5 81

Är det här du?

Bli LibraryThing-författare.

 

Om | Kontakt | LibraryThing.com | Sekretess/Villkor | Hjälp/Vanliga frågor | Blogg | Butik | APIs | TinyCat | Efterlämnade bibliotek | Förhandsrecensenter | Allmänna fakta | 203,223,059 böcker! | Topplisten: Alltid synlig