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Essential IR/politics books

I've read Kenneth Waltz's M, S and W, Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and I'm currently chewing my way through Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

I've seen E. H. Carr's The Twenty Years Crisis and Hans Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations in a few reading lists, what've you guys read, what are your favourites, which book would you define as essential etc?

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Reply 1
Avatar for AliciaJ703
AliciaJ703
2
The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin R. Barber
Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study by Thomas Sowell
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
The Art Of War? :dontknow:
given your username, the road to serfdom. :rofl:

What are you actually interested in? Waltz and Morgenthau I like, good choices there.
Reply 4
Avatar for Krakatoa
Krakatoa
17
For our A2 politics,which we are doing IR,we use Kegley and Wittkopf's World Politics: Trend and Transformation.
Big big weighty book but it deals with everything.
Sabertooth
given your username, the road to serfdom. :rofl:

What are you actually interested in? Waltz and Morgenthau I like, good choices there.


You got jokes bra?

I'm interested in anything worth reading.
Stalin
You got jokes bra?

I'm interested in anything worth reading.


The road to serfdom is definitely "worth reading": it might sort you out :biggrin:

Yeah but I meant like which area of IR/politics? Or just all areas? I found terror and liberalism pretty good, I'm not sure how renowned that book is but if it's the kind of thing you're interested in then worth a read I'd say.
Sabertooth
The road to serfdom is definitely "worth reading": it might sort you out :biggrin:

Yeah but I meant like which area of IR/politics? Or just all areas? I found terror and liberalism pretty good, I'm not sure how renowned that book is but if it's the kind of thing you're interested in then worth a read I'd say.


I'll check it out.

Anything worth reading, but I'd like to get the classic's out the way first.
Reply 8
Avatar for Rlemkin
Rlemkin
1
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
Essential for what purposes? In essence my view of political theory generally is that it's just a load of regurgitated ideas over the last five thousand years which someone makes a best selling book out of once a generation before it's forgotten again until someone brings it up again a generation or two later. It's just perpetual plagerism...
Reply 10
Avatar for Mick-LFC
Mick-LFC
Any Noam Chomsky books, he's a good author! Most of his books deal with American Politics. 'The Prince' by Niccolò Machiavelli would be useful for understanding Political Power in A2 although a bit of advice on this book, it's pretty complex and hard to understand.
danielj315
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.


I've heard a a fair amount of decent hype about this book, is it any good?
Stalin
I've heard a a fair amount of decent hype about this book, is it any good?


Yes, it is definitely a classic and underpins (almost?) all subsequent realist thought on international relations.

It also gets a double mention sometimes because Hobbes (of nasty, poor, brutish and short fame) translated it into English. This then implies links between Thucidydes and Leviathan.

The Cambridge undergrad SPS 1st year used to dedicate an entire lecture series to it (until Prof Geoffrey Hawthorne who ran it retired).

If you don't fancy the whole thing, the most famous section is the Melian Dialogue (5th book, only a few pages long).
Reply 13
Avatar for Rlemkin
Rlemkin
1
Stalin
I've heard a a fair amount of decent hype about this book, is it any good?


I was surprised at just how readable and interesting it was. :smile: As the above poster said possibly the basis for much of realist thought in IR.
Reply 14
Avatar for Kolya
Kolya
17
Stalin
I've read Kenneth Waltz's M, S and W, Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and I'm currently chewing my way through Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

I've seen E. H. Carr's The Twenty Years Crisis and Hans Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations in a few reading lists, what've you guys read, what are your favourites, which book would you define as essential etc?

Walt created a list of his 10 essential IR books a few months ago that I copied down. (a couple of them you already have mentioned.)

waltz - man, the state, and war
diamond - guns, germs, and steel
schelling - arms and influence
scott - Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
halberstam - the best and the brightest
jervis - perception and misperception in international politics
mearsheimer - The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
gellner - nations and nationalism
kissinger - white house years (but not to be taken at face value!)
polanyi - the great transformation
Kolya
Walt created a list of his 10 essential IR books a few months ago that I copied down. (a couple of them you already have mentioned.)

waltz - man, the state, and war
diamond - guns, germs, and steel
schelling - arms and influence
scott - Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
halberstam - the best and the brightest
jervis - perception and misperception in international politics
mearsheimer - The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
gellner - nations and nationalism
kissinger - white house years (but not to be taken at face value!)
polanyi - the great transformation


Looks very similar to Stephen Walt's list :holmes:

Good list nonetheless, thanks.
Reply 16
Avatar for Kolya
Kolya
17
Stalin
Looks very similar to Stephen Walt's list :holmes:

Good list nonetheless, thanks.

given that i did say it was his list, the similarity is hardly coincidental!
Kolya
given that i did say it was his list, the similarity is hardly coincidental!


It was a joke :p:

Spoiler

Kolya
given that i did say it was his list, the similarity is hardly coincidental!


I didn't read that which was why I gave your list the old eyeball, have you read them all?
AliciaJ703
It was a joke :p:

Spoiler



My jokes are better than that :rolleyes:

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