Research Catalog

Destined for war : can America and China escape Thucydides's trap?

Title
Destined for war : can America and China escape Thucydides's trap? / Graham Allison.
Author
Allison, Graham T
Publication
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/TextUse in library JFE 17-5887Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xx, 364 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
Summary
"CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES ARE HEADING TOWARD A WAR NEITHER WANTS. The reason is Thucydides's Trap, a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one. This phenomenon is as old as history itself. About the Peloponnesian War that devastated ancient Greece, the historian Thucydides explained: "It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." Over the past 500 years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times. War broke out in twelve of them. Today, as an unstoppable China approaches an immovable America and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promise to make their countries "great again," the seventeenth case looks grim. Unless China is willing to scale back its ambitions or Washington can accept becoming number two in the Pacific, a trade conflict, cyberattack, or accident at sea could soon escalate into all-out war. In Destined for War, the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains why Thucydides's Trap is the best lens for understanding U.S.-China relations in the twenty-first century. Through uncanny historical parallels and war scenarios, he shows how close we are to the unthinkable. Yet, stressing that war is not inevitable, Allison also reveals how clashing powers have kept the peace in the past -- and what painful steps the United States and China must take to avoid disaster today"--
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-348) and index.
Call Number
JFE 17-5887
ISBN
  • 9780544935273
  • 0544935276
LCCN
2017005351
OCLC
2017005351
Author
Allison, Graham T, author.
Title
Destined for war : can America and China escape Thucydides's trap? / Graham Allison.
Publisher
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-348) and index.
Other Form:
Online version: Allison, Graham T. Destined for war Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017 9780544935334 (DLC) 2017022333
Research Call Number
JFE 17-5887
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