Climate change, energy transition, U.S. relative decline, and Chinese ascent are all ongoing processes. Their linkages, however, have not yet been fully defined. Climate change makes transitioning from non-renewable fuels to alternative energy a key area for any country to develop, and, in the past, energy transitions have been central to the rise of new system leaders. In our time, the likelihood of a successful response to global warming and effective systemicleadership hinge on which state leads in replacing carbon for non-carbon energy sources in fueling their economies.

• Part I: Introduction


• Chapter 1: Systemic Leadership and Energy: The Argument


• Chapter 2: The Leadership Long Cycle Framework


• Chapter 3: Revising the Framework: Long Cycles, Eurasian History and the Role of Energy


• Part II: The Past


• Chapter 4: Rome as the Pinnacle of the Western Ancient World


• Chapter 5: China: The Incomplete Transition


• Chapter 6: The Netherlands: Not Quite the First Modern Economy and Its Immediate Predecessors


• Chapter 7: Britain: The First Modern Industrial Economy Combining Technology and Energy


• Chapter 8: The United States: Emulating and Surpassing Britain


• Chapter 9: Comparing the Four Main Cases


• Part III: The Future


• Chapter 10: Global Warming and (Possibly) the Nature of the Next World Economy Upswing


• Chapter 11: Fracking, Warming, and Systemic Leadership


• Chapter 12: Racing to a Renewable Transition?


• Chapter 13: Denouement: World Politics, Systemic Leadership, and Climate Change


• References

William R. Thompson is a Distinguished Professor and Rogers Professor of Political Science at Indiana University. Recent books include How Rivalries End (Pennsylvania, 2013), Transition Scenarios (Chicago, 2013), and Ascending India and Its State Capacity (Yale, 2016).
Leila Zakhirova is an assistant professor of political science at Concordia College. She is a co-editor of Asian Security.