Logic of the Growth of Great Powers: An International Political Sociology Analysis of Western Great Power Rise

Author: Guo Shuyong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: This book adopts new theories and perspectives from international political sociology, taking the relationship between state growth and the international community as its starting point. It examines variables such as ordered development, legitimate war, and great power image to reinterpret the historical patterns of successful rise among Western powers like France, Britain, Russia, and the United States since the Thirty Years' War. It goes beyond Paul Kennedy's methods and conclusions in observing the rise and fall of great powers, supplements Joseph Nye's recent soft power theory, and proposes the proposition that great power growth is the unity of material growth and social growth. The book offers unique and detailed insights into key issues such as soft power, great power image, the contrast between the rise of Germany and Japan, and the mystery of U.S. growth. It also provides strategic advice for great powers in their growth phase, making it an academic monograph in China that uses international political sociology to study the strategy of great power rise.