AbstractIn this paper, the stabilization problem of several classes of complex cascade systems is investigated from a new point of view. If the closed‐loop system is proven to have no finite escape time, the boundedness information in finite time, which is obtained from robust stable subsystems or recursive analysis procedures, is then sufficiently employed to deal with crucial nonlinear terms. The proposed method does not rely on complicated Lyapunov functions, and in some cases it can avoid strong growth conditions and complicated small gain analysis. In addition, simple saturated control laws are explicitly constructed in an almost unified way. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.