# Racing to the Top Author: [[Leila Zakhirova]], [[William Thompson]] ## Review The premise of the book is fascinating and it started strong. They take a modified model of 'world powers and leading sectors' created by Modelski and Thompson and build on it. This framework describes a connection between global political hegemonic cycles and leadership in the growth sectors of the global economy. The authors expand on this model by highlighting the important interactions between new energy sources and technological innovation, at least in the case of the three recent hegemons (Netherlands, UK and the US). There are two phases of the model. It combines smithian economic growth based on specialization & trade, with frontier expansion and development surges which reshape the energy and technology landscape. The reference Goldstone's theory that growth happened in previous era's as well but was hindered by bottlenecks in energy technology. ( Development surges are also known as Kondratieff waves. I have previously read and reviewed Perez's book [[Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital]] which describes the process through which they emerge). The authors then walk us through world political leadership from Rome, to Han China, to the Tang & Song dynasties, Italian city states, Portugal & Spain, Netherlands, the UK, and the US. With each hegemon they describe aspects of the economy and where the wealth came from that allowed and necessitated them to project force. Each state had sections on urbanization, agriculture, technological innovation, communication infrastructure and trade. There were two things I felt they left out. First, there was little to no discussion of the Ottoman empire or the period of Islamic hegemony (maybe these don't qualify as hegemons). Second, climate as a source of competitive advantage was not really discussed. Climate is highly correlated to agricultural productivity and demographic factors so I was disappointed this wasn't explored more. The narrative from hegemon to hegemon was relatively smooth after the Han dynasty. I have a much better understanding of history after reading about it through this lens. In many ways there were indirectly addressing the factors behind the great divergence. Why did the industrial revolution happen in England/Europe when southern Song already had coal and precursors to the steam engine? It was interesting that they didn't draw comparisons to fragmented political entities during the 10 kingdoms period and Europe in the early modern period. There were some interesting sources cited throughout the first two parts of the book, in particular on the 'great divergence' question. Although I have not studied history in a university setting this seems like one of the most important questions in economics. One reference in particular stands out to me because its an idea I had not encountered before: the importance of social networks in innovation. There must be a root cause of these networks forming in some places rather than other places, maybe due to political dynamics making it favorable to explore new ideas or economic factors allowing an area to create more inventors. I look forward to reading more about this. Unfortunately, the connection to money and currency was not explored. Each of these countries also had the dominant currency of the time. I would have liked to understand the connection between leading economic growth, hegemony and the spread of their currencies The last part of the book was very disappointing. The discussion around global warming was tangential to the relationship between technological development, energy transitions and political leadership cycles. I also skipped the chapter on fracking. They analyzed who would lead in the future based on how quickly countries enforce switching to renewables energy but there was no discussion of the economics of renewables. I wanted to learn more about it and how the economics compare to past energy transitions given that part of the leadership cycle has to do with cheaper, more abundant and concentrated energy. Unfortunately, Fusion energy was not mentioned which seems to fit much better with the idea of a technological development surge. The reason I picked this book up in the first place is because I had a hunch that competitive advantages in certain sectors (in particular cost of energy, technology, labour, land and capital) are major factors in fast economic growth leading to hegemony. I learned a lot and I am glad I picked it up for the historical discussion and unfamiliar ideas. The ending was useless though, and they didn't discuss the most important future energy technology. ## Key Ideas - Leading global political powers depended on having a competitive advantage in some sectors of the economy. - These often came in the form of leading positions in commerce & trade, technology, or a new energy source. - The stronger the lead and the more areas they were leading in, the stronger the global power or hegemony. - These hegemony's then also enforced paradigms on the rest of the world in order to strengthen their own economies by expanding markets or reducing commercial costs by creating protection (trading routes and pirates for example.) ## Related