This being final notice of a book about great powers – powers like the Spain or the UK – first rising then falling, first noticed at reference 2 in January and then at reference 3 much more recently. One the lessons of the book being that great powers have never been great for ever. They rise, then things change – and they fall.
The author, Paul Kennedy, is a Geordie who started out at the University of Newcastle in the mid 1960’s, went through various academic hoops in this country before winding up at Yale in 1983. He is still on the books there. This book appeared in 1988, before the break up of the Soviet Union, before German reunification and before the rise of China – none of which were predicted in the book. Bad timing!
My copy of the book is a fat paperback, worn enough to have been read at some point, but in perfectly serviceable condition. Near 700 pages of text plus near 200 pages of apparatus – this last notes, bibliography and index. A sprinkling of maps. Rather more tables. No glossy pictures. £3.99 from eBay plus £1.99 for a version on Kindle from Amazon. Cloud Reader has its points.
A book in three parts, with their relative size presumably reflecting the author’s interests and specialities – rather than the number of years involved.
First, to 1815: the pre-industrial world, mapped in the snap above. Mainly Europe, and including less than ten pages on China and the Muslim world. Japan and to a lesser extent China get more coverage later on. The Ottomans get in on account of their long struggle with the European powers. 180 pages.
Second, 1816-1942: the era of the industrial powers: Europe, Russia, Japan and the US. The UK has its day at the top of the heap – and then loses it. 270 pages.
Third, 1943 to 1988 plus a peek at the future. The bipolar world, dominated by the US and the Soviet Union. The US has its day at the top – and then starts to lose it to a multi-polar world which it cannot dominate in quite the same way. 350 pages.
There are a lot of small statistical tables. I have made no attempt to follow up any of the end notes or otherwise check these tables – but I do worry. Tables of this sort of simplicity about things which are happening now are hard enough – and tables of this sort about things which mostly happened a long time ago are very difficult indeed.
Kennedy tells a generally good story, sometimes pulling off a summary of a complicated situation – say the between wars period in Europe – which both compels and convinces.
Another lesson being that, generally speaking anyway, the combatants with the biggest economies and the most money tend to win in the long run. You might win a battle on the cheap, but you are unlikely to win the war. While Hitler was able to hold out as long as he did in part because of his relatively peaceful annexation of productive resources in Europe, for example in Belgium, France, Austria and Czechoslovakia.
And another being that countries have a choice: they can spend on consumption now, on armaments now or on investment for the future. And getting the choice right is not always easy.
Over-reach seems to be common. A country acquires all kinds of commitments when it on the way up, from which it finds it hard to withdraw when it is on the way down – in relative if not absolute terms.
But while he notes our difficulties in the UK in winding down from being a great power, I worry about how the US will wind down from the pre-eminence it enjoyed in the second half of the twentieth century. Three big countries all wanting to be in a position where they can take on all comers – in the case of the US with its 15 carrier task forces – is not a very good place to be. A US with lots of resources, lots of fuel & food and comfortably isolated geographically. No-one is likely to invade them – so why all the carriers?
Ultimately, all rather pessimistic in tone. A view of history as a bunch of powers forever jostling for position, sometimes by military means. Kennedy is dismissive of the Austrian attempt to build a multi-national state and gives little space to the likes of the United Nations, WHO or WTO.
Miscellanea
Russia has always spent a great deal on armaments – at the expense of consumption – so pre-revolution Russia was just as keen on heavy industry and arms as Stalin. Russia has always had authoritarian governments, and despite size, often something far too close to rule by one man. Long periods of more or less bloody unrest. Climate limited – certainly by comparison with the farm belt in the US. Economy not reaching its potential. And more continuity with the past in that pre-revolution Russia was just as paranoid about war on two fronts as the current regime. With lots of divisions stationed out east.
I have often wondered about why there is an Alaskan panhandle, running half way down what ought to be the coast of British Columbia, that is to say Canada. It seems that this stretch was a rich hunting ground for hunters and trappers and very much part of Russian Alaska, before the Canadians got there. Very much part of what was sold to the US by the Russians in the middle of the nineteenth century, in preference to the UK, then an enemy. There was a dispute between the US and Canada about the boundary, but the existence of the panhandle was not in dispute, just how thick it should be.
I was reminded of the huge casualties of the American Civil War, well over half a million in total, with the winners losing rather more than the losers. But the winners had vastly more resources than the losers – and were never going to lose unless they just gave up.
I was reminded that our king blocked Catholic emancipation at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A tradition which continued with Tories blocking Home Rule until their hand was forced after the first world war.
In the first world war, in their early rush to the west, the Germans grabbed all the high ground. If they had stuck to defence of those positions, rather than bleeding away in attacks on Verdun and then provoking the US, they might have been alright.
The US was the big winner in both world wars, making a huge amount of money out of the likes of the UK, which last more or less bankrupted itself. So by the end of the second, we really had run out of puff.
Kennedy is something of a booster for the Japan of the 1980’s – while not giving much space to China.
There is a remark near the end of the book about fading great powers being like all those old men who try to keep up with the young men. And always fail. I have been warned!
Conclusions
A good, if rather stodgy, read. Plus a touch dated.
References
Reference 1: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 – Paul Kennedy – 1987.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/another-graphic.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/02/russian-demography.html.
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