About national and international power in the "modern" or Post Renaissance period. Explains how the various powers have risen and fallen over the 5 centuries since the formation of the "new monarchies" in W. Europe.
Chapter 1. The Rise of the Western World - Ming China
Two Outsiders—Japan and Russia
Chapter 2. The Habsburg Bid for Mastery, 1519–1659 - The Meaning and Chronology of the Struggle
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Habsburg Bloc
War, Money, and the Nation-State
Chapter 3. Finance, Geography, and the Winning of Wars, 1660–1815 - The “Financial Revolution”
The Winning of Wars, 1660–1763
The Winning of Wars, 1763–1815
The Crimean War and the Erosion of Russian Power
The United States and the Civil War
The Wars of German Unification
The Position of the Powers, 1885–1914
Alliances and the Drift to War, 1890–1914
Total War and the Power Balances, 1914–1918
The Unfolding Crisis, 1931–1942
The Cold War and the Third World
The Fissuring of the Bipolar World
The Changing Economic Balances, 1950 to 1980
Chapter 8. To the Twenty-first Century - History and Speculation
The EEC—Potential and Problems
The Soviet Union and Its “Contradictions”
The United States: The Problem of Number One in Relative Decline