Book calls for new alliances to counter the growing global dominance of China

David Murrin, author of Breaking the Code of History, claims that the polarisation of religion, commodity depletion, disease and climate change add "a dangerous combustible mix, which, unless checked, threaten war by the end of the first quarter of the century".

His publishers said the book forms the basis of the geopolitical and macroeconomic thinking behind the strategic asset allocation for the investment management company he founded, Emergent Asset Management.

His book also analyses the decline of the American empire and offers an alternative explanation of the current credit crisis.

Mr Murrin began his career as a geophysicist in Papua New Guinea and later joined JP Morgan as a trader and strategic

adviser.

While there, he built a new market analysis group based on human behaviour patterns.

He co-founded Emergent Asset Management, focusing on emerging markets, in 1997.

A spokeswoman for publisher Apollo Analysis said: "Mr Murrin takes the reader on a journey from the first civilizing impulses of early humans to the modern era, offering evidence of how civilizations develop, wax and wane in a five-stage replicating process.

"These 'Five Stages of Empire' are repeated the world over as regional powers accumulate resources, expand, mature, overextend and finally decline."