Ray Kiely’s new book by is an impressively erudite and insightful contribution to the main debates regarding the emerging powers. This book examines both international relations (IR) theories and development theories in order to consider the rise and fall of the South. Kiely also draws upon modernization and dependency approaches as framing devices to contextualize and analyze the discussion. Each chapter questions the rise of the South. Kiely’s book advances the debate on the rise and fall of emerging powers in several important ways. First, it draws on significantly new data, especially on corporate ownership, the unfolding crisis in the South, and poverty and inequality. Second, it develops the argument concerning the growing crisis in the South in much greater empirical depth and detail. Third, this book has much greater analytical depth because there is far more discussion of how the rise and fall of the South can be understood within wider frameworks drawn from theories of both IR and development.