In Twilight of the Titans, Paul K. MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent examine great power transitions since 1870 to determine how declining powers choose to behave, identifying the strong incentives to moderate their behavior when the hierarchy of great powers is shifting. Challenging the conventional wisdom that such transitions push declining great powers to extreme measures, this book argues that intimidation, provocation, and preventive war are not the only alternatives to the loss of relative power and prestige. Using numerous case studies, MacDonald and Parent show how declining states tend to behave, the policy options they have, how rising states respond to those in decline, and what conditions reward particular strategic choices.

Paul K. MacDonald is associate professor of political science at Wellesley College. He is author of Networks of Domination.

Joseph M. Parent is professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of Uniting States and coauthor of American Conspiracy Theories.