This third edition of The Stages of Economic Growth, first published in 1991, has a new preface and appendix, Professor Rostow extends his analysis to include economic and political developments as well as the advances in theory concerning nonlinear and chaotic phenomena. For those coming to his work for the first time, the original text and the introductions and appendices from earlier editions are included. This volume will not only be of interest to those concerned with the theory of economic growth, but also to students of policy since the 1960s. In the text Professor Rostow gives an account of economic growth based on a dynamic theory of production and interpreted in terms of actual societies. Five basic stages of economic growth are distinguished with detailed discussions of each stage including illustrative examples. He also applies the concept of stages of growth to an examination of the problems of military aggression and the nuclear arms race. The final chapter includes a comparison of his non-communist manifesto with Marxist theory. Materials from the second edition include an appendix in which he responds to some of his critics.

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The analysis of fluctuations longer than the nine-year business cycle has been somewhat confused by a failure to distinguish sharply and to relate three distinct phenomena: the forces set in motion by a leading sector in growth, stemming from the introduction and progressive diffusion of a new technology, and its deceleration; the forces set in motion by changes in the profitability of producing foodstuffs and raw materials, whether from the side of prices or technology, including their effects on investment in new territories and mines, on capital movements, interest rates, terms of trade, and domestic and international income distribution; and the forces set in motion (notably, in housing and urban infrastructure) by large waves of international or domestic migration or other forces changing the rate of family formation, housing demand, and the size of the working force. As the world economy unfolded after 1783, these three phenomena operated concurrently and related to each other in complex ways not easy to disentangle. Nevertheless, the substantial literature on long waves can be usefully clarified by distinguishing these phenomena more sharply than is sometimes done and then relating them to each other at particular times and places. The exercise of doing so has, I believe, some general implications for economic theory, for they are all aspects of the process of adjustment towards a moving equilibrium, never attained—a process for which we lack an adequate dynamic theory.

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In The Stages of Economic Growth, for which he is known around the world, W. W. Rostow distinguished five basic stages of growth experienced by societies as they change from a pre-industrial state to full economic maturity. In this book the analysis is continued but the focus is shifted, from economic growth to politics. Professor Rostow see politics as an eternal triangle of competing imperatives - of security, welfare, and constitutional order. Using this concept, he examines the political meaning and content of each of the stages as experienced by eight countries; Great Britain, France, China, Japan, Russia, Turkey, Mexico and the United States. He goes on to consider, in the heart of the book, a uniquely political stage: the search for quality which is possible in an age of high mass consumption. Special attention is given the United States. Professor Rostow also examines the character of politics in the developing nations of today, and makes explicit what he sees to be the lessons of history and the contemporary world for these nations. He concludes by using his analysis to speculate on possibilities for peace in the global community.