Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?
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Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?
Paperback – August 7, 2018
by Graham Allison (Author)
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES (LONDON) * AMAZON
“Allison is one of the keenest observers of international affairs around.”— JOE BIDEN, former vice president of the United States
China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants. The reason is Thucydides’s Trap: when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, violence is the likeliest result. Over the past five hundred years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times; war broke out in twelve. 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. A trade conflict, cyberattack, Korean crisis, or accident at sea could easily spark a major war.
In Destined for War, eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison masterfully blends history and current events to explain the timeless machinery of Thucydides’s Trap—and to explore the painful steps that might prevent disaster today.
“[A] must-read book in both Washington and Beijing.”— NIALL FERGUSON, BOSTON GLOBE
“[Allison is] a first-class academic with the instincts of a first-rate politician.”— BLOOMBERG NEWS
“[Full of] wide-ranging, erudite case studies that span human history . . . [A] fine book.”— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES (LONDON) * AMAZON
“Allison is one of the keenest observers of international affairs around.”— JOE BIDEN, former vice president of the United States
China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants. The reason is Thucydides’s Trap: when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, violence is the likeliest result. Over the past five hundred years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times; war broke out in twelve. 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. A trade conflict, cyberattack, Korean crisis, or accident at sea could easily spark a major war.
In Destined for War, eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison masterfully blends history and current events to explain the timeless machinery of Thucydides’s Trap—and to explore the painful steps that might prevent disaster today.
“[A] must-read book in both Washington and Beijing.”— NIALL FERGUSON, BOSTON GLOBE
“[Allison is] a first-class academic with the instincts of a first-rate politician.”— BLOOMBERG NEWS
“[Full of] wide-ranging, erudite case studies that span human history . . . [A] fine book.”— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Review
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
A LONDON TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR: POLITICS
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: POLITICS
AN AMAZON BEST HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
A LONDON TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR: POLITICS
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: POLITICS
AN AMAZON BEST HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
About the Author
GRAHAM ALLISON is director of Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the best-selling author of LeeKuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World; Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe; and Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Founding dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, Dr. Allison has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense and advised the secretaries of defense under every president from Reagan to Obama. He lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.