International Relations: The Basics (Basics

The Basics

by Peter Sutch

International Relations is a concise and accessible introduction for students new to international relations and for the general reader. It offers the most up-to-date guide to the major issues and areas of debate and:




explains key issues including humanitarian intervention and economic justice features illustrative and familiar case studies from around the world examines topical debates on globalization and terrorism provides an overview of the discipline to situate the new reader at the heart of the study of global politics


Covering all the basics and more, this is the ideal book for anyone who wants to understand contemporary international relations.

Genres: International Relations, Politics

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Suanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lays out the basic fundamentals for the approach to international politics and international relations. It is not comprehensive (at least in my own limited view): There are plenty of existing international relations theories. This book merely touches on a basic critical understanding of Realism and Liberalism, two of many theoretical "camps".

It was good enough for me when I first started out my freshman year in my undergraduate studies of International Relations (IR), but I am afraid it does not suffice for 2nd year on-wards. Just my two cents.

[Jess ~]

Brief overveiw of the different international relations lenses. Very textbook-y. Kind of boring

[Bookworm Amir · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book really just touches on the basics, it doesn't go in depth at all. When I first started my international relations course, all the terms seemed daunting to me, and the book did help a bit. But afterwards when we had to submit our course works, the book was entirely insufficient to be used. It works best a a literary form of Wikipedia. Also it does not have the other theories listed in it. And it can hardly be used as a reference book in our essays. Again, this book just talks about the basics of IR to get a feel of what it is - but definitely cannot be used for anything more than that such as in depth studies.

[Svetlana · Rating 3 out of 5]

As has been repeated several times in the book by authors themselves, it's a brief introduction to the theory of international relations. In other words this book could be called "IR for dummies".
I found this book quite helpful to refresh names and basics of the IR. Its structure is nice and easy to read.
I think, it's a good book for people who are strangers to IR at all and they want to find out how it works in general. Or its for students from other majors than social sciences.
IR students or advanced readers on this topic will find this book too sketchy.