• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  -->
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
• 
• 

Appendix A: Modern Political Economic History

Study

Summary

Appendix A presents a concise summary of world history. For scholars of world politics, history is the data set against which theories are tested. What has occurred in the past and what will occur in the future are not due to happenstance but, rather, depend on choices about alternative paths (counterfactuals) that were not taken. To understand international affairs, we need to know the facts of history--and we need theories to organize these facts. To judge historical decisions, we need to pay attention to information that was available to decision makers at the time they made their decisions and their beliefs; we cannot evaluate decisions based on their consequences.

Study Questions

1. Look for broad themes in history that have emerged and, in some cases, declined. Can you see instances in which power, preferences, or perceptions mattered in the decisions and outcomes traced in this chapter?
   



2. Think about some general themes that run through the history of international politics. What factors or ideas are important in international politics today that were not important in, say, the 1500s? What are some factors or ideas that are not important now that were prominent in previous centuries?
   



3. How do changes in technology affect history and international politics? In particular, think of some changes that have affected world politics in different eras before the twentieth century (for example, the development of naval technologies, the invention of gunpowder, nuclear weapons, and informational technology).
   



4. Why does leadership in the international system change hands? List some factors contributing to the rise and fall of several different hegemons or leading states in the past five centuries (for example, the rise of Spain in the 1500s and its decline in the 1700s, the rise of England starting from 1600s and its decline after World War II, the rise of France in the 1600s and its decline in the 1800s, the rise of Germany in the late 1800s and its decline after World War I, and the creation and the collapse of the Soviet Union).
   



5. Think about the concept of sovereignty. What does it mean? When did it arise, and how did it change in the twentieth century?