Are there recurring historical dynamics and patterns that can help us understand today's power transitions and struggles over international order? What can we learn from the past? Are the cycles of rise and decline of power and international order set to continue? Robert Gilpin's classic work, War and Change in World Politics offers a sweeping and influential account of the rise and decline of leading states and the international orders they create. Now, some thirty years on, this volume brings together an outstanding collection of scholars to reflect on Gilpin's grand themes of power and change in world politics. The chapters engage with theoretical ideas that shape the way we think about great powers, with the latest literature on the changing US position in the global system, and with the challenges to the existing order that are being generated by China and other rising non-Western states.

‘This book is a superb collection of essays by leading scholars of international politics. The essays build upon the pioneering work of Robert Gilpin and center on the themes of change and order, decline and war, power and transition in world politics. I learned much from these well-written and forcefully argued chapters.’

Robert Art - Christian A. Herter Professor of International Relations, Brandeis University

‘Over thirty years ago, Robert Gilpin started a conversation on power and change in international order and we have been in debate ever since. A brilliant crew of scholars offers here a must-read on what we have learned and how we should understand order and change - especially as new world leaders contend with the old in a dynamic era.’

Jeffrey W. Legro - Vice Provost for Global Affairs and Taylor Professor of Politics, University of Virginia

‘This collection of essays by leading IR scholars aims to honor and engage with Robert Gilpin's seminal book, War and Change in World Politics (1983). The essays show why Gilpin's treatise is so highly regarded and they offer interesting arguments of their own in the process.’

John J. Mearsheimer - R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago