The Kennedy thesis considered -- Bids for mastery, 1500-90 -- Seventeenth-century crises, 1590-1680 -- The rise of the great powers, 1680-1774 -- A reshaped world, 1775-1860 -- Accelerated change, 1860-1913 -- Bids for power, 1914-42 -- The fall of empires, 1943-91 -- American hegemony, 1991-2007 -- Into the future
