“We shared almost identical premises,” Kissinger said at the time of Morgenthau’s death in 1980. Probably no one took more from “Politics Among Nations” than Henry Kissinger. The book’s admirers constituted a Who’s Who of the period’s leading thinkers on foreign policy: Kennan, Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, Raymond Aron and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. And it wasn’t only college undergraduates who were reading it. The first of five editions published during Morgenthau’s lifetime went through eight printings, the second through six.

Nearly 100 colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton, adopted it for classes, and within five years it apparently was being assigned on the nation’s campuses more often than all of the competing textbooks on foreign policy combined. Virtually as soon as it was published, “Politics Among Nations” became one of the most influential books of the 20th century. Morgenthau set out his ideas most fully in his 1948 masterwork, “Politics Among Nations,” a book that bears returning to today for the lessons it offers a contemporary America struggling once again to clarify its stance toward a volatile world. Morgenthau, a Jewish escapee from Nazi Germany. But the man who provided the intellectual scaffolding for it was Hans J.

The approach that became the guiding principle of foreign policy over the next four decades was, as devised by George F. This may be a good time, therefore, to look back at a book from another era when fundamental questions about foreign policy were being asked - and answered.Īt the start of the Cold War, America found itself in a position of leadership for which it was intellectually unprepared. It has 772 Pages.Lurching from crisis to crisis and assailed even by allies for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States has rarely seemed more absent from the international stage, or more urgently in need of defining its role in world affairs. This book is published by Oxford University Press back in 2008. For more insight get the oxford handbook of international relations. The book also presents the case studies for better understanding of topics. Moving on further it cover major IR theories like Realism, Marxism, Constructivism, Feminism and more. Then it defines key topics like state, global societies and more. Starting from an Introductory chapter which explains the difference between utopia and reality.

The book has covered almost all the topics in depth. Although the book has many contributors but the main editors of this book are Christian Reus-Smit who is a renowned IR professor from University of Queensland, Australia and Duncan Snidal who is a professor from Nuffield College. The oxford handbook of international relations is another one of the best books of international relations for students, professors, diplomats and policy makers.

Top 10 international relations books