Classic Readings

Classics and Must-Read IR Theory

The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides

On War
Clausewitz

Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes

Second Treatise
John Locke

Man, the State, and War
Kenneth Waltz

War and Change in World Politics
Robert Gilpin

Perception and Misperception in International Politics
Robert Jervis

Constructing the World Polity
John Gerard Ruggie

Social Theory of World Politics
Alexander Wendt

Myths of Empire
Jack Snyder

A History of the League of Nations
F.P. Walters

Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics
Arnold Wolfers

The Prince
Machiavelli

Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department
Dean Acheson

Diplomacy
Henry Kissinger (and his many other books)

Memoirs: 1950-1963
George F. Kennan

The World Crisis: 1911-1918
Winston Churchill (and his many other books)

Selected Speeches and Writing,
Abraham Lincoln

Politics among Nations,
Hans Morgenthau

Moral Man and Immoral Society
Reinhold Niebuhr (and his many other books)

Thoughts on the Cause of the Current Discontent,
Edmund Burke

The Portable Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (and her many books)

The Twenty Years Crisis: 1919-1939
E. H. Carr

Seven Pillars of Wisdom
T.E. Lawrence

Revolt in the Desert
T.E. Lawrence

The Rights of War and Peace
Hugo Grotius

Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
V.I. Lenin

Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (1957)
Karl Deutsch

International Politics in the Atomic Age (1959)
John H. Herz

Swords Into Plowshares (1959)
Inis Claude

Power and International Relations (1962)
Inis Claude

The Strategy of Conflict (1963)
Thomas Schelling

Essence of Decision (1971)
Graham Allison

Crisis, Escalation, and War (1972)
Ole Holsti

The Study of World Society: A London Perspective (1974)
John Burton

Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (1974)
Alexander George and Richard Smoke

The Power of Nations: The Political Economy of International Relations (1975)
Klauss Knorr

Arms and Influence (1976)
Thomas Schelling

The Anarchical Society (1977)
Hedley Bull

Power and Interdependence (1977)
Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye

The Capitalist World Economy (1979)
Immanuel Wallerstein

Theory of International Politics (1979)
Kenneth Waltz

The Correlates of War (1979)
J. David Singer

Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1981)
Stephen Krasner

Stephen Krasner (ed.), "International Regimes," special issue of International Organization 36, 2 (Spring 1982).

After Hegemony (1984)
Robert Keohane

The Sources of Military Doctrine (1984)
Barry Posen

Economic Statecraft (1985)
David Baldwin

The Rise of the Trading State (1986)
Richard Rosecrance

Cooperation Under Anarchy (1986)
Kenneth Oye

The Origins of Alliances (1987)
Stephen Walt

War and Reason (1992)
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and David Lalman

The War Trap (1981)
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

Handbook of War Studies (1989)
Manus Midlarsky (ed.)

Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (1993)
David Baldwin (ed.)

Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge (1995)
Charles W. Kegley, Jr. (ed.)

The Clash of Civilizations (1997)
Samuel Huntington

Articles

Jacob Viner, "Power Versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy," World Politics (October 1948), pp. 1-29.

Kenneth Waltz, "The Stability of a Bipolar World," Daedalus (Summer 1964), pp. 881-887, 899-902, 907-909.

Henry Kissinger, "Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy," Daedalus (Spring 1966), pp. 503-529.

Kenneth Waltz, "International Structure, National Force, and the Balance of World Power," Journal of International Affairs, XXI (1967), pp. 215-231.

J. David Singer, "The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations," in Rosenau (ed.) International politics and Foreign Policy (1969), pp. 20-29, and Knorr and Verba (eds.), The International System (1981), pp. 77-92.

Stephen Krasner, "State Power and the Structure of International Trade," World Politics (April 1976), pp. 317-347.

Karl Deutch and J. David Singer, "Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability," World Politics (January 1979), pp. 390-406.

Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Introduction and conclusion to Transnational Relations and World Politics (1970), pp. ix-xxix and 371-398.

Peter Gourevitch, "The Second Image Reversed," International Organization (Autumn 1978), pp. 881-912.

Josef Lapid, "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-Positivist Era," International Studies Quarterly (1989), pp. 235-251.

Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World Politics, vol. 30, no. 2 (January 1978).

Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Makes of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization, vol. 46, pp. 391-426.