Ebook: The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism

The first reference work to explore the 2000-year history of political realism and reassess its place in today’s world

• Download an ebook of the chapter abstracts and notes on contributors (pdf)

Political realism is a highly diverse body of international relations theory. This substantial reference work examines political realism in terms of its history, its scientific methodology and its normative role in international affairs.

Split into three sections, it covers the 2000-year canon of realism: the different schools of thought, the key thinkers and how it responds to foreign policy challenges faced by individual states and globally. It brings political realism up-to-date by showing where theory has failed to keep up with contemporary problems and suggests how it can be applied and adapted to fit our new, globalised world order.

Key Features

• The first volume to offer a full, balanced guide to Political Realism: its history and its normative role in international affairs
• Covers the main thinkers, from Thucydides through Niccolò Machiavelli to Isaiah Berlin
• Engages with the major foreign policy issues of our times, such as strategic deterrence, nationalism, terrorism, cyber security, climate change, the open society and religion
• Considers political realism in non-Western contexts, including Israel, Russia and China
• Includes political realism’s ground-up growth and interpretation outwith Western contexts

Contributors

• Uriel Abulof, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
• Christopher Adair-Toteff, Zeppelin University, Germany.
• Erica Benner, Yale University, USA.
• John Bew, King’s College London, UK.
• Todd Breyfogle, Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C., USA.
• Joshua Cherniss, Georgetown University, USA.
• Alan Chong, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.
• Lindsay P. Cohn, U.S. Naval War College, USA.
• Kody W. Cooper, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA.
• Marzieh Kouhi Esfahani, Durham University, UK.
• Markus Fischer, California State University, Fullerton, USA.
• Richard Forno, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA.
• Stuart Gray, Politics at Washington and Lee University, USA.
• Robert Howse, New York University School of Law, USA.
• David Martin Jones, University of Queensland, Australia and King’s College London, UK.
• Menno R. Kamminga, University of Groningen, Netherlands.
• Peter Iver Kaufman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and University of Richmond, USA.
• David Kerr, Durham University, UK.
• Paul Kirkland, Carthage College, Wisconsin, USA.
• Douglas B. Klusmeyer, American University, Washington, DC, USA.
• Konstantinos Kostagiannis, University of Maastricht, Netherlands.
• Ayelet Haimson Lushkov, University of Texas at Austin, USA.
• Cecelia Lynch, University of California, Irvine, USA.
• David Mayers, Boston University, USA.
• Kenneth B. McIntyre, Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, USA.
• Neville Morley, University of Exeter, UK.
• John Mueller, Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Ohio State University, USA.
• Masashi Okuyama, International Geopolitical Institute Japan and Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan.
• Samir Puri, King's College London, UK.
• Grace Roosevelt, Metropolitan College of New York, USA.
• Felix Rösch, Coventry University, UK.
• William E. Scheuerman, Indiana University, USA.
• Tim Spiekerman, Kenyon College, Ohio, USA.
• Peter Stirk, Durham University, UK.
• Tom Switzer, Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
• Zhao Tingyang, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China.
• Jodok Troy, University of Innsbruck, Austria.
• Alex Wilner, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
• Derek M. C. Yuen, University of Hong Kong.
• Rashed Uz Zaman, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.