Volume 48, Number 13 · August 9, 2001
What Makes the World Go Round?
By Robert Skidelsky
The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000
by Niall Ferguson
Basic Books, 552 pp., $30.00
In 1987 the historian Paul Kennedy published a controversial book called The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. Its message was that the United States was suffering from imperial 'overstretch.' Its economy was no longer large or dynamic enough to support its strategic commitments. It had to accept a lesser role in a 'multipolar' world. This message was embedded in a grand historical-geopolitical narrative. Kennedy discerned a long-run correlation between economic and military power. This gave rise to a historic pattern of 'rise and fall,' in which successive dominant powers were drained of economic vitality by the cost of fending off their challengers.
Review, 4257 words
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