DMITRY MINTZ: WRITER, FOUNDER OF MR. MINTZ PUBLISHING
I write about power, institutions, and the choices that shape history. Author of WHY TWO? America, China, and the Ways Great-Power Rivalries End.
WHY TWO?
America, China, and the Ways Great-Power Rivalries End
Fifteen rivalries. Seven known endings. One unwritten.
Why does great-power competition so often organize itself around two dominant rivals? And why do those rivalries end in such different ways?
WHY TWO? moves across twenty-five centuries, from Athens and Sparta to America and China, tracing seven historical doors through which great-power contests have passed — while testing the limits of the comparisons.
Alongside the historical rivalries, a single day unfolds hour by hour: July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of American independence. The two threads explore what power really depends on — not only leaders and weapons, but institutions, material systems, and trust.
Fourteen rivalries have ended. America and China are the fifteenth pair. Their ending remains unwritten.
History gives forms, not commands.
ABOUT ME
I started out in politics — as an analyst, consultant, and campaign strategist — and later spent more than two decades in strategy, marketing, and business development. Working across countries and through periods of disruption taught me to pay attention to how decisions are made under pressure, with incomplete information and consequences no one fully controls.
WHY TWO? grew out of research for a novel. To understand the choices of a character living through the upheavals of our time, I needed to understand the forces pressing on his life. Eventually the research no longer belonged in the background — it had become a book of its own.
I kept encountering the claim that conflict between America and China was inevitable. I wanted to test that claim against the historical record rather than repeat it. The result is a book about recognizable forms — and the limits of what those forms can tell us.