The Return of Great Power Rivalry : Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the U.S. and China

The United States of America has been the most powerful country in the world for over seventy years.The U.S. National Security Strategy declares, however, that the return of great power competition with Russia and China is the greatest threat to U.S. national security. Further, many analysts predict that America's autocratic rivals will succeed in disrupting or displacing U.S. global leadership. Brilliant and engagingly written, The Return of Great Power Rivalry, Matthew Kroenig argues that this conventional wisdom is wrong.Drawing on an extraordinary range of historical evidence and the works of figures like Herodotus, Machiavelli, and Montesquieu-and cutting-edge social science research, Mattew Kroenig advances the riveting argument that democracies tend to excel in great power rivalries.He contends that democracies actually have unique economic, diplomatic, and military advantages in long-run geopolitical competitions.He considers autocratic advantages as well, but shows that these