Preface

Summary

Longer ago than I care to relate, I thought it would be nice to have a paperback edition of this book released with perhaps an epilogue addressing some issues facing international relations theory since the original publication. From this whimsical idea, the volume before you has emerged. It has fully six new chapters, each with its own research design and argument. In part, this is a function of the fact that it proved impossible to treat the question of the power of the realist paradigm to guide inquiry and adequately explain it since the publication of Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics (1979) in just one or two chapters, let alone an epilogue. It is also partly a result of the change in historical events that resulted in the end of the Cold War and that has led to much rethinking (with new historical perspective gained with the passing of an era) about the nature of world politics and the ability of our theories to explain it. However, the main reason behind the expansion of the book can be found in the richness and variety of the discourse on international relations that has emerged since I worked on the original text.