Word: rising
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tallied, the figures become even more alarming. The $50 billion spent on health care for the old when Reagan came into office is expected to reach $200 billion by the year 2000. Between 1980 and 2040, experts project a 160% increase in physician visits by the elderly, a 200% rise in days of hospital care, a 280% growth in the number of nursing-home residents. Between now and the year 2000, a new 220-bed nursing home will have to be opened every day just to keep even with demand. Without a change in the present system, pension and health...
...answer is suggested in a new volume that U.S. policymakers and pundits are lugging around in their briefcases, an immense academic history bristling with tables, maps and charts, plus 83 pages of closely printed footnotes and a bibliography that cites nearly 1,400 sources. The book is The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Yale Professor of History Paul Kennedy. Its message, particularly for the U.S. at the present moment, is not encouraging...
Kennedy's view of the past, and of the years to come, is governed by a central and, on the surface, astonishingly simple thesis: "The historical record suggests that there is a very clear connection in the long run between an individual Great Power's economic rise and fall and its growth and decline as an important military power (or world empire)." If all he were saying is that richer nations tend to win wars, then there would be very little reason for anyone to read further. But Kennedy's argument is more supple than it at first appears...
...Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is sure to generate considerable discussion and debate among professional historians. Amateur spectators will probably concentrate on what the coming decades are supposed to hold. Americans, specifically, have noticed over the past few years that wide swatches of the rest of the world are turning from obedient clients into uppity competitors. Trade imbalance, budget deficits, falling currency, skyrocketing military expenses now conspire to trouble the American dream. There is a nagging fear that things are coming unglued, and Kennedy does little to allay...
...failure to adjust sensibly to the newer world order." Not everyone will welcome or accept Kennedy's bittersweet verdict that the U.S. may become healthier in the long run by accepting its diminishing status gracefully. But until it is convincingly refuted by other theorists or the years ahead, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers stands as a fascinating response to ancient questions about the life- span of nations...