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“Great power rivalry” books explore competition among dominant states for influence, security, and leadership in the international system. This category spans nonfiction analyses of diplomacy, strategy, and geopolitics—covering eras from classical conflicts and imperial rivalries to the World Wars, the Cold War, and contemporary U.S.–China tensions—as well as case studies, biographies of decision-makers, and policy debates. Common themes include arms races, alliance-building, proxy wars, economic coercion, technological competition, intelligence and information warfare, and the making and breaking of international orders. It also includes fiction—techno-thrillers, alternate histories, and near-future scenarios—that dramatize crises, escalation dynamics, and the human stakes of high-level competition. Readers should expect narratives that illuminate how shifting balances of power shape global stability, trade, ideology, and the prospects for war or peace.

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