ABSTRACT
The economic fortunes of countries are said to follow “life cycles.” The Dutch occupied a position of economic dominance in the mid-1600s because of their maritime advantage. Great Britain rose to a hegemonic position in the late eighteenth century and was the major industrial power until the late nineteenth century, when the economic superiority of Germany and the United States eclipsed it. Great Britain went from producing fully one-third of all the products in the world in 1870 to producing just 13.6 percent in 1913, compared to 35.8 percent by the United States and 14.8 percent by Germany. 1
