50 Books about international relations

The Arthur Ross Book Award is a politics-related literary award.

After Hegemony is a book by Robert Keohane first published in 1984. It is a leading text in the neo-liberal school of international relations scholarship.

The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics is a 1977 book by Hedley Bull and a founding text of the English School of international relations theory. The title refers to the assumption of anarchy in the international system and argues for the existence of an international society.

Arms and the Covenant is a 1938 non-fiction book written by Winston Churchill. It was later published in the United States as While England Slept; a Survey of World Affairs, 1932–1938. It highlighted the United Kingdom's lack of military preparation to face the threat of Nazi Germany's expansion and attacked the current policies of the British government, led by the Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The book galvanised many of his supporters and built up public opposition to the Munich Agreement.

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It is a 2007 book by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University, exploring the reasons why impoverished countries fail to progress despite international aid and support. In the book Collier argues that there are many countries whose residents have experienced little, if any, income growth over the 1980s and 1990s. On his reckoning, there are just under 60 such economies, home to almost 1 billion people.

The China–Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics is a book by British author Andrew Small exploring the cultural and political ties as well as depicting the relationship between Pakistan and China, released in early 2015. The book examines the history of the relationship as well as its current trajectory. Its introduction begins with 'The China-Pakistan axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner'. It has been the subject of several articles and columns, including in the Economist, the New York Times, and the Financial Times. The book is published by Hurst Publishers in the United Kingdom and Oxford University Press in the United States.

Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, is a book by Patrick J. Buchanan, published in May 2008. Buchanan argues that both world wars were unnecessary and that the British Empire's decision to fight in them was disastrous for the world. One of Buchanan's express purposes is to undermine what he describes as a "Churchill cult" in America's élite and so he focuses particularly on how Winston Churchill helped Britain get into wars with Germany in 1914 and again in 1939.

The Clash of Civilizations is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures. It was proposed in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Claws of the Panda: Beijing's Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada (2019) is a book by John Manthorpe about Canada's foreign relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the influence of the Communist Party of China in Canada. Manthorpe argues that Canada and the PRC have a clash of values and that Canada has been a victim of multiple abuses by Beijing including spying, abductions, human rights abuses, intellectual property theft, monitoring and intimidating Chinese Canadians and Chinese dissidents, and other attempts to influence Canadian policy. His thesis is that the PRC has been able to implement such policies for a number of years due to naivete by Canadian policy makers. In the book Manthorpe advocates for a change in Canadian foreign policy towards the PRC.

Conditions of Peace is a book written by Edward Hallett Carr.

Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall is a 2007 book by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua.

De Administrando Imperio is the Latin title of a Greek-language work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is Πρὸς τὸν ἴδιον υἱὸν Ρωμανόν. It is a domestic and foreign policy manual for the use of Constantine's son and successor, the Emperor Romanos II.

Duties Beyond Borders is a book by Stanley Hoffmann published in 1981 which focuses on the application of ethical principles to international relations. The book won the Le Prix Adolphe Bentinck for 1982 for "the book which most contributes to the unity and cause of peace in Europe". The book is based upon a series of lectures which Hoffmann gave at Syracuse University between February and April 1980.

The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism is a 1993 non-fiction book by David Orchard. It was first published in April 1993 through the Stoddart Publishing Company and a revised edition with five new chapters was released in 1998 through Robert Davies. It details the history of Canada and the many attempts of annexation, by military or political means, by the United States.

A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship is a 2007 compilation of floor speeches to the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Ron Paul. They covered a 30-year period and addressed foreign policy. The book was published as an accompaniment to his campaign for the presidency of the United States in the 2008 election. The first edition includes a foreword by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. It is published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education of Lake Jackson, Texas.

Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad is a 1999 book by Welsh author Gordon Thomas on the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. Two years previously Thomas wrote and narrated a major documentary for Channel Four - The Spy Machine - co-produced by Open Media and Israfilm. As Thomas's "Notes on Sources" afterword to Gideon's Spies makes clear, the research for the film provided him with some, but not all, of the sources and material he used when writing his later book independently of Channel 4 and the film-makers.

Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention is a non-fiction compilation book about humanitarianism on the international arena, edited by Jonathan Moore. Noteworthy contributors to the book include: Kofi A. Annan, Rony Brauman, Romeo A. Dallaire, Richard J. Goldstone, J. Bryan Hehir, Michael Ignatieff, Ian Martin, Elizabeth Reid, Mohamed Sahnoun, Mu Sochua, Cornelio Sommaruga, Roger Williamson, and José Zalaquett. It was published in paperback format by Rowman & Littlefield in 1998.

Hidden Hand: Exposing How The Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping The World is a 2020 book by Australians Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg, and is a follow up of Hamilton's 2018 book Silent Invasion. The book details the claim of "the Chinese Communist Party’s global program of influence and subversion, and the threat it poses to democracy".

The Human Security Report Project (HSRP) is a peace and conflict studies research group. The Project is presently based at Simon Fraser University's School for International Studies at Harbour Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, having formerly been based at the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Issues in the Human Security Centre.

In Defense of the National Interest is a 1951 book by realist academic Hans Morgenthau. The book is a critique of what Morgenthau calls 'deeply ingrained habits of thought and preconceptions as to the nature of foreign policy in the United States'.

Interventions: A Life in War and Peace is a memoir by former Secretary-General of the United Nations and 2001 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan. The book focuses on the workings of the United Nations Secretariat and the conditions under which the Secretary General has to take decisions. The book is mainly set in the Post–Cold War era when Annan served as the Deputy Secretary General and then as the Secretary General of the United Nations. The book has been co-written with his former advisor and speechwriter Nader Mousavizadeh.

The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall is a book by political scientist Ian Bremmer. It was named a "Book of the Year" in 2006 by The Economist.

Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence is a book written by Jaswant Singh, a former Finance Minister of India and an External Affairs Minister, on Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the politics associated with the Partition of India. It is currently the latest book written by an Indian politician on the life of Jinnah. The book was released on 17 August 2009 and soon became the subject of controversy, subsequently leading to Singh's expulsion from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). It contains controversial opinions of Singh, claiming that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's centralised policy was responsible for partition, and that Jinnah was portrayed as a demon by India for the partition. The book launch ceremony was held at Teen Murti Bhavan in the presence of only a couple of BJP members. In response to the book, Nusli Wadia, the grandson of Jinnah said: "My grandfather is my grandfather. You can't change the fact that I am his [Jinnah's] grandson, and I take extreme pride on being that."

The Keys of This Blood is a 1990 non-fiction geopolitical book by former Catholic Jesuit priest Malachi Martin.

The Law of Peoples is American philosopher John Rawls' work on international relations. First published in 1993 as a short article, in 1999 it was expanded and joined with another essay, "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" to form a full-length book. Rawls's basic distinction in international politics is that his preferred emphasis on a society of peoples is separate from the more conventional discussion of international politics as based upon relationships between states. It is an attempt to show "how the content of a Law of Peoples might be developed out of a liberal idea of justice similar to, but more general than, the idea I call justice as fairness".

Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom is a 2011 non-fiction book by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX).

Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed is a 2009 book by British journalist and writer Paul Mason. An updated edition was released in 2010.

The New World Order is a non-fiction book written by H.G. Wells and was published by Secker & Warburg in January 1940. In The New World Order, Wells proposed a framework of international functionalism that could guide the world towards achieving world peace. To achieve these ends, Wells asserted that a socialist and scientifically planned world government would need to be formed to defend human rights.

Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order is an essay by Robert Kagan which attempts to explicate the differing approaches that the United States and the nations of Europe take towards the conduct of foreign policy. Kagan argues that the two have different philosophical outlooks on the use of power, which are the natural consequence of the United States' possession of power and the Europeans' lack of it.

Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations After the Iraq War documents for Anglophone readers the debate that took place among a number of European intellectuals in response to the manifesto by Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida calling for Europe to come together around a common foreign and security policy to provide a counterweight to the "hegemonic unilateralism" of the United States. The book was first published in 2005 by Verso Books. The book was edited by Daniel Levy, Max Pensky, and John Torpey; contributors include Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Richard Rorty, Timothy Garton Ash, Ralf Dahrendorf, Gianni Vattimo, Adam Krzemiński, and many others.

On the Road to Kandahar: Travels through Conflict in the Islamic World is a 2007 nonfiction book written by Jason Burke, chief foreign correspondent of The Observer, based on his experiences living and traveling in various Islamic countries around the world. Much of the book is based in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

The Origins of the Second World War is a non-fiction book by the English historian A.J.P. Taylor, examining the causes of World War II. It was first published in 1961 by Hamish Hamilton.

Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch is a 1795 book authored by German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs. the Masters of the Universe is a 2015 book by British investigative journalist Matthew Kennard.

The Revenge of History: The Battle for the Twenty-First Century is a 2012 book by British journalist and writer Seumas Milne. An updated edition was published in 2013.

The Revolution: A Manifesto is a New York Times #1 best seller by Republican former U.S. Congressman Ron Paul. The work was published on April 30, 2008 by Grand Central Publishing. According to Paul, the book is based on written notes during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Scientific Man versus Power Politics is a 1946 work by realist academic Hans Morgenthau. The book is Morgenthau's first work and contains his most systematic exposition of a realist philosophy and a critique of a position he terms 'liberal rationalism'. Morgenthau argues that liberalism's belief in human reason had been shown to be deficient because of the rise of Nazi Germany and that emphasis on science and reason as routes to peace meant that states were losing touch with historic traditions of statecraft. The work marked out Morgenthau as the pre-eminent modern exponent of a Hobbesian view of human nature in international relations scholarship. Despite the contemporary association between (neo)realism and positivism Scientific Man has been considered a critique of attempts to place politics on a 'scientific' footing in works such as Charles Merriam's New Aspects of Politics.

Selling Apartheid: South Africa's Global Propaganda War is a 2015 book by Ron Nixon, the Washington correspondent for the New York Times and a visiting associate in the Department of Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Witwatersrand.

The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History is a historico-philosophical work by Philip Bobbitt. It was first published in 2002 by Alfred Knopf in the US and Penguin in the UK.

Silent Invasion (2018) is a book by Clive Hamilton and is about the growing influence of the Communist Party of China in Australian politics and civil society. The book details the systematic attempt by the government of the People's Republic of China to expand its espionage network and influence in Australia. The author alleges that this is causing "the erosion of Australian sovereignty".

Social Theory of International Politics is an academic book by Alexander Wendt. It expresses a constructivist approach to the study of international relations and is one of the leading texts within the constructivist approach to international relations scholarship.

Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World is a book on politics and international relations written by Margaret Thatcher in 2003 and was published by Harper Perennial.

The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918 is a scholarly history book by the English historian A. J. P. Taylor and was part of "The Oxford History of Modern Europe", published by the Clarendon Press in Oxford in October 1954.

Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World is a 2015 non-fiction book by Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer that offers an analysis of the foreign policy of the United States since the end of the Cold War, and possible ways forward.

Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century is a work by Philip Bobbitt that calls for a reconceptualization of what he calls "the Wars on Terror." First published in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and by the Allen Lane imprint of Penguin in the U.K., Terror and Consent takes as its point of departure the perspectives Bobbitt developed in The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History. The book consists of an introduction, three parts, and a conclusion.

Theory of International Politics is a 1979 book on international relations theory by Kenneth Waltz that offers a new theory, the neorealist theory of international relations. Taking into account the influence of neoclassical economic theory, Waltz argued that the fundamental "ordering principle" (p. 88) of the international political system is anarchy, which is defined by the presence of "functionally undifferentiated" (p. 97) individual state actors lacking "relations of super- and subordination" (p. 88) that are distinguished only by their varying capabilities.

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics is a book by the American scholar John Mearsheimer on the subject of international relations theory published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2001. Mearsheimer explains and argues for his theory of "offensive realism" by stating its key assumptions, evolution from early realist theory, and its predictive capability. He readily acknowledges the inherent pessimism of offensive realism and its predictions because his world is one in which conflict between great powers will never see an end.

Why England Slept is the published version of a thesis written by John F. Kennedy in his senior year at Harvard College. Its title is an allusion to Winston Churchill's 1938 book While England Slept, which also examined the buildup of German power. Published in 1940, Kennedy's book examines the failures of the British government to take steps to prevent World War II and its initial lack of response to Adolf Hitler's threats of war.

World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability is a 2003 book by the American law professor Amy Chua. It is an academic study of ethnic and sociological divisions in the economic and political systems of various societies. The book discusses the concept of market-dominant minorities, defined as ethnic minority groups who, under given market conditions, tend to dominate economically, often significantly, over all other ethnic groups in the country.

A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822 is a book by Henry Kissinger that was published in 1957.