International Relations
Explore the World of International Relations!
In an increasingly connected world, understanding the dynamics between countries, cultures and global organizations is essential. If you want to uncover the behind-the-scenes of diplomacy, understand international conflicts or analyze the trends that shape the future of the planet, books on International Relations are your definitive guide.
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Why dive into this topic?
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Understand global challenges: From political crises to trade agreements, discover how nations interact and negotiate.
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Analyze conflicts: Understand the roots of wars, tensions and disputes that impact millions of people.
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Explore international cooperation: Learn about the role of organizations such as the UN, WTO and IMF in building a more stable world.
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Think about the future: Discover how issues such as climate change, technology and migration are redefining relations between countries.
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Our selection of books includes:
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Classic works: From the founding theorists to the analyses that defined the field of International Relations.
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Case studies: In-depth analyses of historical and contemporary events that have shaped the world.
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Global perspectives: Books that explore the views of different countries and regions on international politics.
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Current debates: Explore topics such as globalization, international security, human rights, and more.
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Who are these books for?
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Students and academics: Essential resources to deepen your knowledge and research.
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Professionals: Develop analytical and strategic skills for careers in diplomacy, international business or NGOs.
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Curious and enthusiastic: Learn in an accessible and engaging way about the issues that define the global scenario.
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Conscious citizens: Understand how international decisions impact your life and your country.
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Transform your worldview!
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Each book is a window into the complexities and opportunities of relationships between nations. Be inspired by in-depth analysis, fascinating stories, and insights that broaden your understanding of the global landscape.
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International Relations are at the heart of the modern world. Start your journey today! Choose your next book and embark on an adventure across the global stage.
Because understanding the world is the first step to changing it.
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Below are some of the great classic books on International Relations. Those interested can purchase them on Amazon. Simply click on the “Buy on Amazon” button below the book cover and you will be directed to the purchase page.
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THE TRAGEDY OF GREAT POWER POLITICS
English | John J. Mearsheimer (author)
"A superb book. Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers". Barry R. Posen, The National Interest.
The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully?
In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable.
Pages
561
Language
English
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date
April 7, 2014
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
English | Samuel P. Huntington (author)
Samuel Huntington explains how clashes between civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace but also how an international order based on civilizations is the best safeguard against war. Events since the publication of the book have proved the wisdom of that analysis. The 9/11 attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the threat of civilizations but have also shown how vital international cross-civilization cooperation is to restoring peace. As ideological distinctions among nations have been replaced by cultural differences, world politics has been reconfigured. Across the globe, new conflicts—and new cooperation—have replaced the old order of the Cold War era.
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The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order explains how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global politics. These developments challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly “universal” Western ideals, and intensify intercivilization conflict over such issues as nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy.
Pages
370
Language
English
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Publication Date
May 31, 2007
DIPLOMACY
English | Henry Kissinger (author)
A brilliant, sweeping history of diplomacy that includes personal stories from the noted former Secretary of State, including his stunning reopening of relations with China.
The seminal work on foreign policy and the art of diplomacy.
Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America’s approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations.
Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is vital reading for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.
Pages
912
Language
English
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Publication Date
April 4, 1995
THE BOTTOM BILLION
English | Paul Collier (author)
In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed states - home to the poorest one billion people on Earth - pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards.
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A struggle rages within each of these nations between reformers and corrupt leaders - and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that ensnare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations.
Pages
224
Language
English
Oxford University Press
Publication Date
May 25, 2007
THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE
English | Paul Bracken (author)
The cold war ended more than two decades ago, and with its end came a reduction in the threat of nuclear weapons - a luxury that we can no longer indulge. It's not just the threat of Iran getting the bomb or North Korea doing something rash; the whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics. In short, we have entered the second nuclear age.
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In this provocative and agenda-setting book, Paul Bracken of Yale University argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities.
Pages
336
Language
English
St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date
November 26, 2013
THE ETHICS OF WAR AND PEACE
English | Helen Crowe (author)
The Ethics of War and Peace is a lively introduction to one of the oldest but still most relevant ethical debates. Focusing on the philosophical questions surrounding the ethics of modern war, Helen Frowe presents contemporary just war theory in a stimulating and accessible way.
This third edition has been revised and updated throughout, with additional material covering belligerents’ duties to refugees, the scope of jus ad bellum, indirect intervention and alternatives to intervention, and the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan. The book also covers key topics, including: theories of self-defence and national defence; jus ad bellum, jus in bello and jus post bellum; the moral status of combatants; humanitarian intervention; weapons and technology; the principle of non-combatant immunity; the nature of terrorism and the moral status of terrorists.
Pages
287
Language
English
Publisher
Routledge
Publication Date
August 25, 2022
THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD
English | Fareed Zakaria (author)
Fareed Zakaria's international bestseller The Post-American World pointed to the "rise of the rest" - the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, and others - as the great story of our time, the story that will undoubtedly shape the future of global power. Since its publication, the trends he identified have proceeded faster than anyone could have anticipated. The 2008 financial crisis turned the world upside down, stalling the United States and other advanced economies. Meanwhile emerging markets have surged ahead, coupling their economic growth with pride, nationalism, and a determination to shape their own future.
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In this new edition, Zakaria makes sense of this rapidly changing landscape. With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, he draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past 500 years - the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States - to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the "rise of the rest".
Pages
337
Language
English
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date
May 31, 2011
THE AGE OF MIGRATION
English | Hein de Haas (author); Stephen Castles; Mark Miller
Long established as the leading textbook on migration and used by students and scholars alike all over the world, this fully revised and updated sixth edition continues to offer an authoritative and cutting-edge account of migration flows, why they occur, and their consequences for both origin and destination societies.International migration is one of the most emotive issues of our times, reforging societies around the world and shaping debates on security, national identity and sovereignty in profound ways. The expert authors of this book provide a truly global and interdisciplinary introduction to this perennially important topic, with chapters covering all of the world's regions and spanning the nineteenth century to the present day. Exploring the significance of migration in relation to recent events and emerging trends, from the policies of the European Union to the Great Recession, this text helps to shed light on the often large gap between the rhetoric and realities of migration.
Pages
460
Language
English
Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date
November 21, 2019
THE FUTURE OF POWER
English | Joseph S. Nye Jr. (author)
The Future of Power examines what it means to be forceful and effective in a world in which the traditional ideas of state power have been upended by technology, and rogue actors.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a longtime analyst of power and a hands-on practitioner in government, delivers a new power narrative that considers the shifts, innovations, bold technologies, and new relationships that are defining the twenty-first century. He shows how power resources are adapting to the digital age and how smart power strategies must include more than a country's military strength.
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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, unsurpassed in military strength and ownership of world resources, the United States was indisputably the most powerful nation in the world. Today, China, Russia, India, and others are increasing their share of world power resources.
Pages
322
Language
English
Publisher
Public Affairs
Publication Date
February 1, 2011
MAN, THE STATE, AND WAR: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
English | Kenneth N. Waltz (author)
What are the causes of war? How might the world be made more peaceful? In this landmark work of international relations theory, first published in 1959, the eminent realist scholar Kenneth N. Waltz offers a foundational analysis of the nature of conflict between states. He explores works by both classic political philosophers, such as St. Augustine, Hobbes, Kant, and Rousseau, and modern psychologists and anthropologists to discover ideas intended to explain war among states and related prescriptions for peace. Waltz influentially distinguishes among three “images” of the origins of war: those that blame individual leaders or human nature, those rooted in states’ internal composition, and those concerning the structure of the international system. With a foreword by Stephen M. Walt on the legacy and continued relevance of Waltz’s work, this anniversary edition brings new life to a perennial international relations classic.
Pages
290
Language
English
Columbia University Press
Publication Date December 11, 2018
GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL
English | Jared Diamond (author)
“One of the most significant projects embarked upon by any intellectual of our generation” (Gregg Easterbrook, New York Times), Guns, Germs, and Steel presents a groundbreaking, unified narrative of human history.
Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this “artful, informative, and delightful” (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, a classic of our time, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns.
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A major landmark in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way in which the modern world, and its inequalities, came to be.
Pages
528
Language
English
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date March 7, 2017
ARMS AND INFLUENCE
English | Thomas C. Schelling (author)
"This is a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable and infuriate those who have taken refuge in stereotypes and moral attitudinizing". - Gordon A. Craig, New York Times Book Review.
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"A grim but carefully reasoned and coldly analytical book. . . . One of the most frightening previews which this reviewer has ever seen of the roads that lie just ahead in warfare". - Los Angeles Times.
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Originally published in 1966, this landmark book explores the ways in which military capabilities - real or imagined - are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. Anne-Marie Slaughter's new introduction to the work shows how Schelling's framework - conceived of in a time of superpowers and mutually assured destruction - still applies to our multipolar world, where wars are fought as much online as on the ground.
Pages
336
Language
English
Yale University Press
Publication Date March 17, 2020
SEEING LIKE A STATE
English | James C. Scott (author)
In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood.Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.
Pages
464
Language
English
Yale University Press
Publication Date February 8, 1999
PERCEPTION AND MISPERCEPTION IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
English | Robert Jervis (author)
Since its original publication in 1976, Perception and Misperception in International Politics has become a landmark book in its field, hailed by the New York Times as "the seminal statement of principles underlying political psychology." This new edition includes an extensive preface by the author reflecting on the book's lasting impact and legacy, particularly in the application of cognitive psychology to political decision making, and brings that analysis up to date by discussing the relevant psychological research over the past forty years. Jervis describes the process of perception (for example, how decision makers learn from history) and then explores common forms of misperception (such as overestimating one's influence). He then tests his ideas through a number of important events in international relations from nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history. Perception and Misperception in International Politics is essential for understanding international relations today.
Pages
529
Language
English
Princeton University Press
Publication Date May 2, 2007
NATIONS AND NATIONALISM
English | Ernest Gellner (author)
This updated edition of Ernest Gellner’s classic exploration of the roots of nationalism includes an extended introduction from John Breuilly, tracing the way the field has changed over the past two decades.
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As pertinent today as it was when it was first published in 1983;
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Argues that nationalism is a product of industrialization;
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The new edition includes references to important work on nationalism published since 1983.
Second Edition not available in the USA.
Pages
208
Language
English
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Publication Date May 2, 2006
