Publisher's Synopsis
Since 1800, following the emergence of Britain as the first modernizing state, many major powers - especially those of non-Western tradition - have generally experienced a series of political crises followed by a complex process of political rebirth or state re-engineering in general process. This book attempts to explain the political and economic changes that these countries experienced under the impact of the Industrial Revolution and modernization, and to understand the similarities and differences of these changes and the theoretical logic behind them. In five chapters, the book describes the five stages that great powers may face in their development after the rise of Britain, namely, crisis, dilemma, transformation, rise and leadership, and through analyzing and interpreting the cases of specific great powers, it constructs a brand-new theoretical framework for understanding the political and economic changes of great powers, which is both profoundly insightful and highly relevant.
