Kennedy, Paul 1945- (Paul M. Kennedy, Paul Michael Kennedy)

PERSONAL:

Born June 17, 1945, in Wallsend, England; emigrated to the United States, 1983; son of John Patrick and Margaret Kennedy; married Catherine Urwin, September 2, 1967; married Cynthia Farrar, August 18, 2001; children: James, John, Matthew. Education: University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, B.A. (with first class honors), 1966; St. Antony's College, Oxford, D.Phil., 1970. Politics: "Wobbly." Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Yale University, Department of History, P.O. Box 208324, New Haven, CT 06520-8324. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, editor, historian, lecturer, and educator. University of Oxford, Theodor Heuss Research Fellow, 1968-69; University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, lecturer, 1970-75, reader, 1975-82, professor of history, 1982-83; Yale University, New Haven, CT, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, 1983—, on leave of absence, spring, 2008. Lecturer at universities throughout the United States and England. Guest on television shows, including the Today Show and MacNeil-Lehrer Report.

MEMBER:

Royal Historical Society (fellow), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (fellow); British Academy (fellow), American Philosophical Society, Association of American Historians.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 1968, 1972; fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, 1978-79; Wolfson Prize, Wolfson Foundation, 1989; Acqui Storia Prize, Italy, 1990; named Commander of the British Empire (CBE), 2000; Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy, Yale University; recipient of awards from the British Academy, Leverhulme Foundation, Beit Fund Oxford, Social Science Research Council, and German Academic Exchange Service. Recipient of honorary degrees from Yale University, Ohio University, University of Newcastle, Long Island University, University of Leuven, and the University of New Haven.

WRITINGS:

Pacific Onslaught, 7th December, 1941 to 7th February, 1943, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1972.

Pacific Victory, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1973.

(Under name Paul M. Kennedy) The Samoan Tangle: A Study in Anglo-German-American Relations, 1878-1900, Barnes & Noble (New York, NY), 1974.

(Under name Paul M. Kennedy) The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Scribner (New York, NY), 1976, reprinted, Humanity Books (Amherst, NY), 1998.

(Editor, with J.A. Moses) Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870-1914, University of Queensland Press (Queensland, Australia), 1977.

(Editor under name Paul M. Kennedy) The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914, Allen & Unwin (Boston, MA), 1979.

(Under name Paul M. Kennedy) The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914, Allen & Unwin (Boston, MA), 1980.

The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865-1980, Allen & Unwin (Boston, MA), 1981.

(Editor, with Anthony Nicholls) Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1981.

Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945: Eight Essays, Allen & Unwin (Boston, MA), 1984.

Lessons from the Fall and Rise of Nations: The Future for America, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC) 1987.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Random House (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor) Grand Strategies in War and Peace, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1991.

(Under name Paul M. Kennedy) Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, Random House (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor under name Paul M. Kennedy) Global Trends: The World Almanac of Development and Peace, Continuum (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) The Pivotal States: A New Framework for U.S. Policy in the Developing World, Norton (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor) From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2000.

(Editor, with Dirk Messner and Franz Nuscheler) Global Trends and Global Governance, Pluto Press (Sterling, VA), 2002.

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations, Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of syndicated column on current global issues, Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media Services. Contributor to newspapers and periodicals, including the New York Times and the Atlantic. Contributor to history journals in England, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Serves on the editorial board of numerous scholarly and academic journals.

Kennedy's works have been translated into more than twenty languages.

SIDELIGHTS:

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 is Paul Kennedy's lengthy, best-selling analysis of why countries gain and lose worldly power. According to Los Angeles Times critic Garry Abrams, "Kennedy's theory is that the rise and fall of most great countries and empires since 1500 share a pattern and that there is an inescapable linkage between wealth and military might. Major players on the world stage usually have begun the descent to lesser roles because they failed to prudently finance their military commitments and to match their military commitments to their capabilities."

The most talked-about section of the book, noted Abrams, is chapter eight, in which Kennedy suggests that America's relative share of the world's wealth is declining when compared to its post-World War II stance. In Kennedy's opinion, both China and Japan are the countries to watch in the years ahead. The author maintains: "If I'm going to preach about the lessons of history at all, it is that societies which did not invest in the future but invested too much either in defense or consumption were destined to be overtaken by those with a different set of priorities," quoted Abrams.

In his Washington Post review, Norman Podhoretz disagreed on several counts with the ideas represented in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. "Has [America's] decline really been caused by the economic factors that Kennedy and so many others keep harping on?" Podhoretz wondered. The reviewer also believes it is untrue "that a nation's power is necessarily a function of its economic and technological resources. As the case of Japan demonstrates, a nation can be economically strong and yet lack all other forms of power. As the case of the Soviet Union shows, a nation can be economically weak and yet command overwhelming military and political strength." Podhoretz maintained that Kennedy knows all of this but that as a liberal his ideas appeal to other liberals and Democrats: "For Democrats, the ‘end of empire’ idea has the benefit of redefining the issue of world power in economic terms, which conveniently moves the discussion away from military strength, an issue on which the Republicans have tended to have more credibility."

However, New York Times reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt valued Kennedy's book because the author "not only exploits his framework eloquently, he also makes use of it to dig deeper and explore the historical contexts in which some ‘power centers’ prospered—for instance, why in the 16th century the cluster of states in west-central Europe rose to economic and strategic pre-eminence while such imposing Oriental empires as Ming China or Tokugawa Japan did not." In his analysis, Kennedy surmises that America's relative erosion can be managed and need not be drastic. To this, Lehmann-Haupt responded that "some will call this conclusion defeatism and others will call it whistling happily in the dark. Whatever it may be, it demonstrates that while the body of this text may be for the occasional browser of good historical writing, its final section is for everyone concerned with the contemporary political scene."

In Grand Strategies in War and Peace, which American Political Science Review contributor Harvey Starr saw as a "form of follow-on study" to The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, editor Kennedy and his contributors offer ten essays and look to "present, elaborate, and apply the concept of grand strategy to a set of case studies dealing with great powers," Starr noted. Kennedy defines and analyzes the concept of "grand strategy," and he and the other essayists apply it to events in Britain, the United States, ancient Rome, imperial Spain, France, the Soviet Union, and Germany. These case studies explore how grand strategy succeeded or failed in these countries, and how these powerful nations sought to combine and integrate various political, military, and economic goals in order to sustain their long-term growth and interests. To Kennedy, grand strategy involves how nations bring together all of the relevant factors that contribute to the country's long-term survival and successful cultivation of its interests. These include "the full use and assessment of diplomacy; questions of national will, morale, and political culture; and the full range of economic resources, including industry, finance, manpower, and wealth," Starr noted. Historian reviewer Harvey B. Tress observed that the book's "essays are readable but assume a great deal of background knowledge and offer little narrative and color."

In Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, Kennedy takes a somewhat bleak and pessimistic look toward the future, considering some calamities that might occur and offering some insight into what might be done to avoid them. As a stepping-off point for his book, Kennedy reconsiders the work of eighteenth-century political economist Thomas Malthus, whose well-known "Essay on Population" predicted that a population explosion would cause economic collapse, widespread starvation, and other dire consequences for England by the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, three critically important developments occurred that Malthus did not (and could not) foresee, keeping the disaster at bay: increased agricultural productivity, effective emigration, and the whole of the Industrial Revolution.

For Kennedy, however, a similar Malthusian crisis is currently blooming throughout the world, and he sees little effective chance to avoid it. "Kennedy approaches the Malthusian question with the distinctive insight of a historian who sees both what is similar and what is different about Malthus's time and ours," observed James Kurth in Foreign Affairs. The world population is expected to be as high as 9.4 billion by the year 2025, which echoes Malthus's condition for uncontrolled overpopulation. Worldwide economic globalization has not had the same beneficial effects as the Industrial Revolution in Malthus's time. Finally, agricultural production seems to have a finite limit short of what would be required to feed a hugely expanded world population, despite the development of biotechnology. Kennedy suspects that the countries that need biotechnology the most will be unable to afford it; that biotechnology will benefit only already-rich nations; and that poor countries will become more and more dependent on rich ones for their agricultural needs.

Rich nations should be quite concerned, Kennedy notes, because "current global inequities have grave consequences for the natural environment, which affects us all, and because social unrest and migratory pressures will increase dramatically in a world of eight billion people," observed George Sorenson in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Kennedy envisions a near-future world in which the United States and Britain have diminished power and presence in favor of Japan, Korea, Germany, Switzerland, and several other European countries. China and India will feel the effects of their greater population. And Latin America, the Soviet Union, and Africa will suffer greatly. "Kennedy himself does not seem altogether convinced that the decline he traces in every sector of American society can be reversed. He has little faith in our historical habit of muddling through in dealing with our problems, arguing that this strategy will be no more successful for us than it was for the British in the past century," observed Francis E. Rourke, writing in America. Still, some critics suggest that Kennedy, like Malthus, may have overlooked or not yet imagined circumstances that will alleviate the dread and prevent his predictions from coming true.

"It is possible to find books that are more optimistic or more pessimistic about the future than Kennedy's [Preparing for the Twenty-first Century], but, in general, he has created a balanced, persuasive argument," commented Thomas A. More in the Journal of Leisure Research. Nieman Reports critic Christopher Lydon called Preparing for the Twenty-first Century "crisp, cosmopolitan, progressive in a business-like way and numbingly knowledgeable about world trend lines of demography, finance, agricultural production, technology and the rest."

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations contains Kennedy's detailed critique of the United Nations (UN). It is a study that helps "add to an understanding of how an organization that is often slow to change and prone to stumbling has to adapt to an ever-evolving international atmosphere," commented Barbara Crossette in Ethics & International Affairs. Kennedy "provides an intelligent, insightful, and highly readable overview of the history of the UN in its first sixty years—and some clear-eyed conclusions about its utility," noted a reviewer in One Country. The author discusses at length the UN's many successes, as well as its more notorious failures, all the while noting how the organization must cooperate on an international basis with nations that adhere strictly to their own sovereignty.

Kennedy is also deeply concerned about the ability of the United Nations to continue to function effectively in the future. On the whole, however, Kennedy displays optimism and a belief in the mission of the UN, and at the end of his book describes a number of possible reforms that he believes could result in positive change and improvements. "Those who wish to understand the history and structure of the UN will find much value" in Kennedy's comprehensive assessment, commented Jay Freeman in Booklist. James Crabtree, writing in New Statesman, called the book "masterful," while New York Times contributor Stephen Schlesinger noted that the work serves to "remind us why [the United Nations] remains a necessary organization." Kennedy's "assemblage of data is extraordinary," Schlesinger stated further. "What becomes clear is that the United Nations does indeed cover the daily life of the planet. Practically every human problem that one can imagine has been addressed by this oft-beleaguered body. Thus, while its doings may not lend themselves to dramatic narrative, what it accomplishes as an organization is dramatic." The "greatest effect of this worthwhile volume is the appreciation one gains for the great complexity of the United Nations and, more to the point, of the tasks it faces," observed David A. Smith in the Naval War College Review, who concluded: "Kennedy also shows the institution to be worthy of a bit more sympathy than many are currently inclined to give it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bestsellers 89, Number 1, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1989.

Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Random House (New York, NY), 1988.

PERIODICALS

America, September 11, 1993, Francis E. Rourke, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 25.

American Historical Review, December, 1981, review of The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914, p. 1092.

American Political Science Review, March, 1993, Harvey Starr, review of Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p. 261.

Booklist, March 15, 1994, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 1350; June 1, 1995, review of Global Trends: The World Almanac of Development and Peace, p. 1823; June 1, 2006, Jay Freeman, review of The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations, p. 11.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 1, 1995, Georg Sorensen, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 69.

Choice, May, 1995, M. Perelman, review of Global Trends, p. 1428.

Chronicle of Higher Education, March 10, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. A14.

Commentary, April, 1993, Irwin M. Stelzer, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 52.

Contemporary Review, March, 2001, review of From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century, p. 192.

Economist, January 17, 1981, review of The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914, p. 91; July 3, 1982, review of The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, p. 77; April 3, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 84; April 29, 1995, Paul Krugman, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 99; July 15, 2006, "Caught in the Middle: The United Nations," review of The Parliament of Man, p. 82.

Ethics & International Affairs, September, 2007, Barbara Crossette, review of The Parliament of Man, p. 381.

Financial Times, June 24, 2006, Mark Turner, "Evolution, Not Revolution—A History of the UN Concludes That Any Changes to It Must Be Gradual," review of The Parliament of Man, p. 29.

Foreign Affairs, fall, 1991, Gregory F. Treverton, review of Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p. 169; spring, 1993, James Kurth, "The Decline and Fall of Almost Everything: Paul Kennedy Peers into the 21st Century," review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 156.

Fortune, April 5, 1993, Allan T. Demaree, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 126.

Historian, winter, 1993, Harvey B. Tress, review of Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p. 352.

History Today, March, 1982, review of The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914, p. 60; December, 1993, Esmond Wright, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 51.

Journal of Economic Literature, June, 1992, review of Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p. 1008.

Journal of Leisure Research, fall, 1994, Thomas A. More, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 403.

Library Journal, March 15, 1995, Bill Rau, review of Global Trends, p. 60; August 1, 2006, Marcia L. Sprules, review of The Parliament of Man, p. 107.

Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1988, Garry Abrams, "Suddenly Quotable Paul Kennedy," p. 1.

Nation, June 14, 1993, James North, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 844.

National Catholic Reporter, April 16, 1993, Raymond A. Schroth, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 14.

National Review, August 23, 1993, Fareed Zakaria, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 57.

Naval War College Review, spring, 2007, David A. Smith, review of The Parliament of Man, p. 156.

New Leader, June 14, 1993, Roger Draper, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 14.

New Statesman, November 6, 2006, James Crabtree, "On Top of the World," p. 58.

New Statesman & Society, April 23, 1993, Sarah Benton, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 36.

New Yorker, March 2, 1981, review of The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914, p. 124; March 1, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 115.

New York Times, January 7, 1988, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, p. 21; February 11, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 24; August 16, 2006, Stephen Schlesinger, "An Imperfect Institution, but Consider the Alternative," review of The Parliament of Man, p. E6.

New York Times Book Review, March 18, 1984, Charles S. Maier, review of Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945: Eight Essays, p. 16; June 6, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 41; December 5, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 70; May 22, 1994, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 48; June 5, 1994, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 60; July 25, 2004, Barry Gewen, "Kill the Empire! (Or Not)," interview with Paul Kennedy, p. 23; August 13, 2006, James Traub, "Bad Company," review of The Parliament of Man, p. 1.

Nieman Reports, summer, 1993, Christopher Lydon, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 78.

One Country, July-September, 2006, "Idealism Versus Reality at the UN," review of The Parliament of Man, p. 16.

Policy Studies Journal, summer, 1994, Peter Dombrowski, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 409.

Publishers Weekly, January 25, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 67; January 24, 1994, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 53.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2007, review of The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery.

Scientific American, July, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 114.

Spectator, May 1, 1976, review of The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 25; August 19, 2006, Robert Salisbury, "Hoping against Hope," review of The Parliament of Man.

Time, March 1, 1993, Walter Shapiro, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 67.

Times Educational Supplement, July 22, 1994, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 26.

Times Higher Education Supplement, November 9, 2006, Margaret Anstee, "A Flawed Force for Good," review of The Parliament of Man, p. 23.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1992, review of Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p. 35; summer, 1994, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 105.

Wall Street Journal, February 25, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 12.

Washington Post, February 25, 1988, Norman Podhoretz, review of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, p. A25.

Washington Post Book World, July 23, 2006, Michael Hirsch, "Last Best Hope?," p. 5.

Wilson Quarterly, spring, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 72; summer, 1993, review of Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, p. 86.

ONLINE

National Public Radio (NPR) Web site,http://www.npr.org/ (March 2, 2003), Linda Wertheimer, "Interview: Professor Paul Kennedy on the Effects of War with Iraq on the Economy," transcript of Weekend Edition Sunday radio interview with Paul Kennedy.

Yale University History Department Web site,http://www.yale.edu/history/ (November 19, 2007), curriculum vitae of Paul Kennedy.