Books on International Relations

International Relations

1. Current Debates in International Relations

Ideal for introductory courses, Current Debates in American Government presents sixty-nine lively readings drawn from major news sources including The Economist, The Washington Post, NPR News, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. The authors selected these readings to introduce students to key debates in American politics and to help them better understand how these issues and debates affect their own lives. Current Debates in American Government is a perfect companion to Morone/Kersh’s textbook, By The People: Debating American Government, Second Edition, (OUP, 2015), as its selections are organized thematically into sections that correspond to the chapters in the text.

2. The Responsibility to Protect in Darfur

This book analyzes the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the context of the conflict in Darfur, using detailed empirical evidence. The volume traces Darfur’s evolution from forgotten conflict to a major global cause and back to obscurity. The emergence of a far-reaching international response to the war in Darfur began in 2004 and included the most influential international advocacy movement since the anti-apartheid campaign and one of the world’s largest peacekeeping missions. The book analyzes how Darfur slid back into international obscurity after 2011, despite ongoing violence against civilians and the continued risk of conflict escalation following Omar al-Bashir’s ousting in April 2019.

3. Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy

Exploring what we know and don’t know about how nuclear weapons shape American grand strategy and international relations The world first confronted the power of nuclear weapons when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The global threat of these weapons deepened in the following decades as more advanced weapons, aggressive strategies, and new nuclear powers emerged. Ever since, countless books, reports, and articles and even a new field of academic inquiry called “security studies” have tried to explain the so-called nuclear revolution.

4. The Transformation of EU Treaty Making

Treaty making is a site of struggle between those who claim the authority to speak and act on the international stage. The European Union (EU) is an important test case in this respect because the manner in which the Union and its member states make treaties has shifted significantly over the last six decades. Drawing insights from EU law, comparative constitutionalism and international relations, this book shows how and why parliaments, the people and courts have entered a domain once dominated by governments. It presents qualitative and quantitative evidence on the importance of public trust and political tactics in explaining this transformation of EU treaty making and challenges the idea that EU treaties are too rigid.

5. Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy

The second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy, co-edited by two leading scholars in the international relations subfield of public diplomacy, includes 16 more chapters from the first. Ten years later, a new global landscape of public diplomacy has taken shape, with major programs in graduate-level public diplomacy studies worldwide. What separates this handbook from others is its legacy and continuity from the first edition. This first edition line-up was more military focused than this edition, a nod to the work of Philip M. Taylor, to whom this updated edition is dedicated.

6. Sensible Politics: Visualizing International Relations

Visual images are everywhere in international politics. But how are we to understand them? In Sensible Politics, William A. Callahan uses his expertise in theory and filmmaking to explore not only what visuals mean, but also how visuals can viscerally move and connect us in “affective communities of sense.” The book’s rich analysis of visual images (photographs, film, art) and visual artifacts (maps, veils, walls, gardens, cyberspace) shows how critical scholarship needs to push beyond issues of identity and security to appreciate the creative politics of social-ordering and world-ordering.

7. The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World

For many observers, the European Union is mired in a deep crisis. Between sluggish growth; political turmoil following a decade of austerity politics; Brexit; and the rise of Asian influence, the EU is seen as a declining power on the world stage. Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the opposite in her important new book The Brussels Effect: the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech.

7. The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World

For many observers, the European Union is mired in a deep crisis. Between sluggish growth; political turmoil following a decade of austerity politics; Brexit; and the rise of Asian influence, the EU is seen as a declining power on the world stage. Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the opposite in her important new book The Brussels Effect: the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech.

8. Sovereignty, RIP

Social order requires a sovereign: an actor with unlimited, undivided, and unaccountable authority. Or so the classic theory says. But without noticing, we’ve gutted the theory. Constitutionalism limits state authority. Federalism divides it. The rule of law holds it accountable. In vivid historical detail—with millions tortured and slaughtered in Europe, a king put on trial for his life, journalists groaning at idiotic complaints about the League of Nations, and much more—Don Herzog charts both the political struggles that forged sovereignty and the ones that undid it. He argues that it’s no longer a helpful guide to our legal and political problems, but a pernicious bit of confusion. It’s time, past time, to retire sovereignty.

9. Cases in International Relations: Principles and Applications Eighth Edition

Designed to complement the main themes of any introductory IR course, Snow’s bestselling text presents original case studies that survey the state of the international system and look in-depth at issues of current interest. The cases are extremely timely, geopolitically diverse, accessibly written, and of high interest and salience amidst today’s headlines. The eighth edition features 18 shorter case studies four more than the previous edition, each of which is designed to be highly accessible and read in a single sitting, allowing for an expansion in the number of topics covered. New and updated topics include petrolism, diplomacy, instruments of power, the universality of human rights, cybersecurity and cyberwar, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation.

10. Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

A “riveting and illuminating” Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don’t (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel. In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises.

11. Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances

A “riveting and illuminating” Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don’t (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel. In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises.

12. How to Lose the Information War

Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading.

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