As a rising great power flexes its muscles on the political-military scene it must examine how to manage its relationships with states suffering from decline; and it has to do so in a careful and strategic manner. In Rising Titans, Falling Giants Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson focuses on the policies that rising states adopt toward their declining competitors in response to declining states' policies, and what that means for the relationship between the two.

Rising Titans, Falling Giants integrates disparate approaches to realism into a single theoretical framework, provides new insight into the sources of cooperation and competition in international relations, and offers a new empirical treatment of great power politics at the start and end of the Cold War. Shifrinson challenges the existing historical interpretations of diplomatic history, particularly in terms of the United States-China relationship. Whereas many analysts argue that these two nations are on a collision course, Shifrinson declares instead that rising states often avoid antagonizing those in decline, and highlights episodes that suggest the US-China relationship may prove to be far less conflict-prone than we might expect.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Rising States and the Fate of Declining Great Powers
1. Predation Theory
2. A Formerly Great Britain: Predicting U.S. and Soviet Strategy
3. The U.S. and Soviet Response to Britain's Decline
4. Watching the Soviet Union Decline: Assessing Change and Predicting U.S. Strategy
5. U.S. Strategy and the Decline of the Soviet Union
Conclusion: Rising Powers, the Fate of Declining States, and the Future of Great Power Politics
Appendix 1: Declining Great Powers, 1860-1913
Appendix 2: Interviews Conducted with Former U.S. Government Officials
Notes
Index

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Boston University. He has published in International Security, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, and other venues.