The national cycle The S-curve Scanning the future Resources Distant trade Industry Migration The industrial revolution Cardwell's law Agriculture Decline in productivity Finance Government finance Social capability Mentalites Slowdown The role of war Policy Successive primacies Catching up and leapfrogging Centralization and pluralism Cooperation and rivalry Challengers The invasion of monopolies Recentering in the absence of challengers War Kondratieff cycles, war cycles and hegemonic cycles Timing The italian city-states Venice Florence Genoa Milan Causes of decline Finance Portugal and Spain Portugal Spain Resource Shipping Spanish silver Inflation, conspicuous consumption and the dutch disease War Overall decline The low countries North europe Bruges The decline of bruges Antwerp Holland Commerce Industry Finance Education Migration High wages, taxation and debt Timing of decline Was the cause of decline external or internal? France, the perpetual challenger Counterxample The fronde Mercantilism and the revocation of the edict of nantes The Mississipi bubble The eighteenth century The continental system Technical education in France Plant visits Saint-simonists Mentalites The interwar breakdown The thirty glorious years Britain, the classic case The classic case The seventeenth century Trade The industrial revolution The nineteenth century Finance Industrial decline The when The why Gentlemen vs. players Education Finance again Policy Germany, the latecomer Overtaking England Mosaic Germany Trade Gewerbefoerderung(industrial policy) The zollverein The constitution of 1848 The 1850s The tariff of rye and iron Attitude toward Britain The overtaking The interwar period From the dawes plan to 1931 The immediate postwar period The wirtschaftswunder(economic miracle) Germany in Europe The aging of Germany The United States Productivity Saving The balance-of-payments deficit Finance Polarization Capital flows The dollar Policy America in decline? Japan in the queue? Pre-world war The 1920s 1945 to the korean war(june 1950) Trade and industry Direct foreign investment Education and "salarymen" Keiretsu "Orgware" Japanese savings The bubble Japan as number one? Conclusion The national life cycle Trade, industry, and finance The causes of decline External causes Internal causes Policy Will decline of a world economic leader be followed by the rise of another? Next?