Table of Contents

Part 1 Strategy and economics in the preindustrial world: the rise of the Western world - Ming China, the Muslim world, two outsiders - Japan and Russia, the "European miracle"; the Habsburg bid for mastery 1519-1659 - the meaning and chronology of the struggle, strengths and weaknesses of the Habsburg bloc, international comparisons, war, money and the nation-state; finance, geography and the winning of wars 1660-1815 - the "financial revolution", geopolitics, the winning of wars 1660-1763 and 1763-1815. Part 2 Strategy and economics in the industrial era: industrialization and the shifting global balances 1815-1885 - the eclipse of the non-European world, Britain as hegemon, the "middle powers", the Crimean War and the erosion of Russian power, the United States and the Civil War, the wars of German unification; the coming of a bipolar world and the crisis of the "middle powers" 1885-1918 and 1919-1942 - the shifting balance of world forces, the position of the powers 1885-1914, alliances and the drift to war 1890-1914, total war and the power balances 1914-1918, the postwar international order, the challengers, the offstage superpowers, the unfolding crisis 1931-1942. Part 3 Strategy and economics today and tomorrow: stability and change in a bipolar world 1943-1980 - "the proper application of overwhelming force", the new strategic landscape, the Cold War and the Third World, the fissuring of the bipolar world, the changing economic balances 1950-1980; to the 21st century - history and speculation, China's balancing act, the Japanese dilemma, the EEC - potential and problems, the Soviet Union and its "contradictions", the United States - the problem of number one in relative decline.