From the introduction:
This is a book about national and international power in the “modern”—that is, post-Renaissance—period. It seeks to trace and to explain how the various Great Powers have risen and fallen, relative to each other, over the five centuries since the formation of the “new monarchies” of western Europe and the beginnings of the transoceanic, global system of states. Inevitably, it concerns itself a great deal with wars, especially those major, drawn-out conflicts fought by coalitions of Great Powers which had such an impact upon the international order; but it is not strictly a book about military history. It also concerns itself with tracing the changes which have occurred in the global economic balances since 1500; and yet it is not, at least directly, a work of economic history. What it concentrates upon is the interaction between economics and strategy, as each of the leading states in the international system strove to enhance its wealth and its power, to become (or to remain) both rich and strong.