Fourteen essential books in the history of International Relations. Classics in IR. Galina Kupriyeva

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      History of international relations begins with wars of ancient Greece, notably, with wars of Greeks allied with Athens against Persia. Peloponnesian war is the landmark from which evolution of international relations starts.

      Relations between states address to diplomatic, political, economic and military aspects. Science of international politics covers all aspects that address to relations between states and other actors at international level. There are, mainly, two schools of thought that study international relations – realism and liberalism that successively divided into different perspectives and paradigms.

      Theories of international politics allow understand mistakes and experiences of the past correctly in order to avoid drawbacks or apply successes in future. Theories of international relations explain behavior of different actors and help understand causes of war as well as peace.

      Importance of international relations lies in virtue to study and analyze myriad of links and interactions between states and other international actors as a single whole with the purpose to explain how the world works.

      Some earlier political scientists such as E.H.Carr and Hans Morgenthau emphasize importance of sovereignty and nation-state, and study, mainly, domestic structures of states and behavior of internal actors with the purpose to analyze how those influence foreign policy objectives and attitudes to other countries.

      Other later realists such as John H. Herz and Thomas Schelling pay attention to influence of military innovations on politics and how the nature of international politics changed since the advent of nuclear weapon.

      Later publications of Kenneth Waltz, Keohane and Nye in addition to analysis of interactions at domestic level study system of states as a whole – whether it is anarchy or hierarchy. They study politics as the interactions of structures and systems rather than simply interactions between states or their government.

      CLASSICS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

      THUCYDIDES «History of the Peloponnesian war».

      Since Thucydides, realists argue that force and power lead the way in politics. Rejecting existence and intervention of supernatural, Thucydides considered history in the sense of human affairs, as consequences of political actions rather than the providence of God or any other supernatural forces. The main stated argument of Thucydides is «What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.» (Thucydides, 1972, p.49)

      Melian dialogue is the passage from the book «Peloponnesian War» that demonstrates how conflict is caused by imbalance in power. Refusal of the Melians – the colony of Sparta – to join the Athenian empire like others, led to a siege of Melos. In a case of joining, they were promised by Athenians to be in safety and alive. By doing opposite, Melians must have been killed or have been taken as slaves. The Melians declined the offer and were captured by the Athenians, «…who put to death all the men of military age whom they took, and sold the women and children as slaves.» (Thucydides, 1972, p.408)

      Significance of the Peloponnesian War in the world history is in its continuation and in unprecedented suffering of human beings. «Never before had so many cities been captured and then devastated, whether by foreign armies or by the Hellenic powers themselves (some of these cities, after capture, were resettled with new inhabitants);never had there been so many exiles; never such loss of life – both in the actual warfare and in internal revolutions.» (Thucydides, 1972, p.48).

      E.H.Carr «Twenty Years Crisis»

      The next author contributed to evolution of realism is Edward Hallet Carr (1892—1982) – British diplomat, journalist and historian of USSR. The main critique by Carr is of liberalism and Woodrow Wilson politics. Afterwards, «Great Depression» of 1929, to some extent, proved his critical considerations on liberalism and moved him to a searching of new base for economic order that would have been found in radical change, social reform and economic planning. Especially his frustration with liberalism was intensified with growing success of Soviet Economy after 1929 while capitalist system was being in crisis. However, he rejected a pure model of socialism trying to find a balance between two philosophical views – idealism and realism. That is why the primary title of «Twenty Years Crisis» (1939) was set out as «Utopia and Reality».

      The book «Twenty Years Crisis» covers the period between two World Wars. It is based on author’s observations and diaries as a contemporary of this period. The book shed light on an interwar period with deep analysis of the system being in crisis. The aim of the book is to explore the interplay between those two views – idealism (utopia) and realism (reality).

      Beginning of the twenty years period was characterized by «utopian» aspirations and beliefs with little account to reality. Europeans believed in continuous British Hegemony and in expansion of coherent «Western» civilization with common development and approach «What was good for one, was good for all» (Carr, 1939, p.207). Characteristic of the end of the СКАЧАТЬ