I thank several colleagues at Texas A&M University for comments on various parts of the manuscript as I developed it: Brett Cooke of the Department of Modern Languages; Larry Napper of the Bush School International Affairs Program; Jonathan Smith and Vatche Tchakerian of the Department of Geography; and Dick Startzman of the Department of Petroleum Engineering. I also thank some thirty-odd...

In much of the literature that addresses transitions in world power such transitions are treated:

Throughout the period 1861 to 1947 global power hinged heavily on maritime power, although air power would become increasingly important in the 1930s and come into its own in WWII. Maritime power, which was almost exclusively held by trading states, was structured in two ways. Trading states grew wealthy on the flows of raw materials and food in and manufactured...

When President Wilson argued in 1919 that international transportation would be an arena of struggle between America and Britain in the coming world he believed that that arena would be a maritime one and that Britain had a good chance of beating America. In the arena of maritime struggle he was generally correct, albeit not for the correct reasons. The problem was that the main arena turned out...

As Wilson noted at Versailles, international communications would be one of the three pivotal arenas of Anglo–American struggle. “Economically, telecommunications has been much more important to the world economy than broadcasting or film” (Hills 2007, 2). As indicated in chapter 5, however, broadcasting had significant implications for the hegemonic struggle between Britain and...

At first sight and to modern eyes broadcasting would seem like an almost entirely national enterprise. Modern FM radio and television broadcast services have a geographic range limited to line-of-sight and in the modern world many are also delivered by geographically localized, subscriber only cable systems. Such systems do not seem a likely arena for international struggle. But to begin with...

The third arena of struggle foreseen by President Wilson at Versailles was over oil. In this he believed America held the advantage over Britain, which suggests that, as was the case with transportation, where he thought the reverse, he was not well informed. Much has been written about this arena of struggle between America and Britain, and it comes down to two quite contradictory arguments:...

Australia offers an interesting case study of the transition from British to American hegemony. In many ways Australia exemplifies all the problems that Britain had to deal with as it declined, especially vis-à-vis America. Australia was pretty much as far from Britain as it could be. This imposed very high energy transportation costs by sea, at least after steam and motor ships developed,...

The simplest fact to remember about the British/American hegemonic transition is that it was far from simple, not least because so many other political actors became involved. The central transition was a classic Type II struggle between two trading states. However, the complex period of multi-polarity that began in the 1880s and the two German wars of the twentieth century ensured that...

Peter J. Hugill was born in York, England, and holds degrees from British, Canadian, and American universities. He is currently professor emeritus of geography at Texas A&M University, where he taught from 1978 through 2016, and a fellow of the Scowcroft Institute in the Bush School of Government and Public Service. He has published five books. His major books are...