International Politics: How History Modifies Theory

Presenting the development of international relations and its theories in a historical narrative spanning 500 years, International Politics: How History Modifies Theory offers a fresh perspective on twenty-first-century world politics. Rather than simply listing IR theories, this text demonstrates that certain theories explain the behavior of world politics better than others based on historical context. Offering a broader and deeper historical perspective than any other text on the market, it demonstrates how history can explain and impact theory development in the field of international relations.

John M. Owen IV is Ambassador Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He has held fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Oxford universities, the Free University of Berlin, and the Berlin Social Science Research Center, and is a recipient of a Research Prize from the Humboldt Foundation of Bonn, Germany. A former Editor of Security Studies, he is author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War (2000) and The Clash of Ideas in World Politics (2010). He serves on the editorial board of International Security.

Richard N. Rosecrance is Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at UCLA and Senior Fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He studies the trends in autonomy and interdependence in Europe and Asia, most particularly China.