Destined for War, Graham Allison
Destined for War, Graham Allison
2 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Destined for War
Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

Author: Graham Allison

Narrator: Richard Ferrone

Unabridged: 12 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/30/2017


Synopsis

War with China is much more likely than anyone thinks When Athens went to war with Sparta some 2,500 years ago, the Greek historian Thucydides identified one simple cause: a rising power threatened to displace a ruling one. As the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains, in the past 500 years, great powers have found themselves in "Thucydides's Trap" sixteen times. In twelve of the sixteen-from war between the French and the Habsburgs in the sixteenth century to the two world wars of the twentieth-the results have been catastrophic. Today, the same structural forces propel China and the United States toward a cataclysm of unseen proportions, even as both sides insist that such a war could never occur. In Destined for War, Allison compares the U.S.-China conflict to its closest parallel: World War I. There, a rising Germany threatened the supremacy of the British Empire. He sketches several scenarios in which America and China might slide, against their intent and better judgment, into a similar conflict. But he also examines the rare instances when two clashing powers have avoided disaster. Can our current standoff be one of those exceptions? Allison's answer is essential reading for our age and those to come.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Callum on April 11, 2025

In describing the cause of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides stated: "It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta, that made inevitable." Graham Allison utilises this dictum to expound the Thucydides Trap: "the natural, inevitable discombobulation that occurs when a rising p......more

Goodreads review by Trish on September 09, 2018

Present foreign policy in the United States is examined in the context of one of the earliest consequential wars ever written about: “While others identified an array of contributing causes of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides went to the heart of the matter. When he turned the spotlight on ‘the ri......more

Goodreads review by Murtaza on October 07, 2018

History shows that changes in the balance of power often occur gradually over time. The spectacular confirmation of the new order sometimes comes only after the fact, when it is punctuated by a decisive war or political collapse. This book argues that the reemergence of China will upend the post-Col......more

Goodreads review by Stanislav on February 21, 2019

Graham Allison's "Destined for War" is an accessible book about one of the most important topics in current international affairs - the relations between the U.S. and China. However, I was actually a bit disappointed with the amount of new content and ideas in the book. The actual idea of a "Thucydi......more

Goodreads review by فهد on April 01, 2019

Destined for War: can America and China escape Thucydides's Trap? من أهم قراءات 2018 – ترجم للعربية مؤخراً -، يقدم فيه أليسون عقدة ثوسيديديس وهي الصدام المتوقع بين قوة مسيطرة وقوة ناهضة، يستعرض أليسون تاريخياً كل هذا النوع من الصدامات، من صراع أثينا الصاعدة مع اسبرطة المسيطرة وحتى الصراع المتوقع بين......more