Traces the distribution of naval power over the past five hundred years, discusses its connection with global politics, and looks at the future of sea power

This critical analysis of long-term trends and recent developments in world systems examines such questions as: Will the cycles of boom and bust, peace and war of the past 500 years continue? Or have either long-term trends or recent changes so profoundly altered the structure of world systems that these cycles will end or take on a less destructive form? The noted international contributors to this volume examine the question of future dominance of the core global systems and include comprehensive discussions of the economic, political and military role of the Pacific Rim, Japan and the former Soviet Union.

The Emergence of the Global Political Economy challenges the assumption that the international political economy is a recent phenomenon. Instead this volume asserts that the current global political economy began to take shape around 1500 and that some of today's key processes were already perceivable several hundred years ago. The book explains the interdependence between long-term economic growth, global political leadership and global war and how this interdependence has evolved over the last 500 years, and includes discussion of: *the ascendence of Western Europe and the significance of the 1490s *the military superiority thesis *sequences of leadership and of challenge to the global political economy *the importance of commodities from sugar and cloth to slaves and bullion *the Anglo-American rivalry until the First World War.

At the beginning of the 21st century much has remained the same in naval terms but much has changed. Geoffrey Till's study is an exploration of how change will impact upon the world's navies.

This book presents a collection of essays charting the developments in military practice and warfare across the world in the early modern period. It also considers the nature and role of technological change, and the relationship between military developments and state-building.

This book discusses the rise of polarity as a key concept in International Relations Theory. Since the end of the Cold War, until at least the end of 2010, there has been a wide consensus shared by American academics, political commentators and policy makers: the world was unipolar and would remain so for some time. By contrast, outside the US, a multipolar interpretation prevailed. This volume explores this contradiction and questions the Neorealist claim that polarity is the central structuring element of the international system. Here, the author analyses different historic eras through a polarity lens, compares the way polarity is used in the French and US public discourses, and through careful examination, reaches the conclusion that polarity terminology as a theoretical concept is highly influenced by the Cold War context in which it emerged. This volume is an important resource for students and researchers with a critical approach to Neorealism, and to those interested in the defining shifts the world went through during the last twenty five years.

While the world’s oceans cover more than seventy percent of its surface, the sea has largely vanished as an object of enquiry in International Relations (IR), being treated either as a corollary of land or as time. Yet, the sea is the quintessential international space, and its importance to global politics has become all the more obvious in recent years. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from IR, Historical Sociology, Blue Humanities and Critical Ocean Studies, The sea and International Relations breaks with this trend of oceanic amnesia, and kickstarts a theoretical, conceptual and empirical discussion about the sea and IR, by highlighting theoretical puzzles, analysing broad historical perspectives and addressing contemporary challenges. In bringing the sea back into IR, the book reconceptualises the canvas of international relations to include the oceans as a social, political, economic and military space which affects the workings of world politics.

Conflict is central to human history. It is often the cause, course and consequence of social, cultural and political change. Military history therefore has to be more than a technical analysis of armed conflict. War in the Modern World since 1815 addresses war as a cultural phenomenon, discusses its meaning in different socities and explores the various contexts of military action.

Many different social scientists have been challenged by the origins of wars, their immediate causes and the mechanisms leading to the breakdown of peaceful relations. Many have speculated whether conflicts were avoidable and whether alternative policies might have prevented conflict. The Ashgate Research Companion to War provides contributions from a number of theorists and historians with a focus on long term, systemic conflicts. The problèmatique is introduced by the Editors highlighting the need for interdisciplinary approaches to the study of war as a global phenomenon. The following 29 essays provide a comprehensive study guide in four sections: Part I explicates differing theories as to the origins of war under the general concept of 'polemology'. Part II analyzes significant conflicts from the Peloponnesian wars to World War II. Part III examines the ramifications of Cold War and post-Cold War conflict. Part IV looks at long cycles of systemic conflict, and speculates, in part, whether another global war is theoretically possible, and if so, whether it can be averted. This comprehensive volume brings us a much needed analysis of wars throughout the ages, their origins, their consequences, and their relationship to the present. A valuable understanding that is ideal for social scientists from a variety of backgrounds.