Now let’s look at the same chart that extends the data all the way back to the year 600. I focused on the one above
(which covers just the last 500 years) rather than the one below (which covers the last 1,400 years) because it
includes the empires I focused on most intently on and is simpler, though with 11 countries, 12 major wars, and
over 500 years, it can hardly be called simple. Still, the one below is more extensive and worth glancing at. I left
out the shading of the war periods to lessen the confusion. As shown, in the pre-1500 period, China was almost
always the most powerful, though the Middle Eastern caliphates, the French, the Mongols, the Spanish, and the
Ottomans were also in the picture.
Our Measures of Wealth and Power
The single measure of wealth and power that I showed you for each country in the prior charts is made up as a
roughly equal average of eight measures of strength. They are: 1) education, 2) competitiveness, 3) technology, 4)
economic output, 5) share of world trade, 6) military strength, 7) financial center strength, and 8) reserve currency.
While there are more measures of and influences on power that we will explore later, let’s begin by focusing on
these key eight.
The chart below shows the average of each of these measures of strength, with most of the weight on the most
recent three reserve countries (i.e., the US, the UK, and the Dutch).2

The lines on the chart do a pretty good job of telling the story of why and how the rises and declines took place.
Using these and referring to some additional factors that we will delve deeper into later, I will describe that cycle
in a nutshell. But before I start, it’s worth noting that all of these measures of strength rose and declined over the
arc of the empire. That’s because these strengths and weaknesses are mutually reinforcing—i.e., strengths and
weaknesses in education, competitiveness, economic output, share of world trade, etc., contribute to the others
being strong or weak, for logical reasons. For example, it makes sense that better-educated people would produce
societies that are more innovative, competitive, and productive. I call this cyclical interrelated move up and down
“the Big Cycle.” Take note of the order that these items move up and down in the chart because it is broadly
indicative of the processes that lead to the rising and declining of empires. For example, quality of education has
been the long-leading strength of rises and declines in these measures of power, and the long-lagging strength has
been the reserve currency. That is because strong education leads to strengths in most areas, including the creation
of the world’s most common currency. That common currency, just like the world’s common language, tends to
stay around because the habit of usage lasts longer than the strengths that made it so commonly used.