Explaining his theory of 'offensive realism,' the University of Chicago professor of political science discusses the methods used by states to ensure their survival through military strength and regional dominance.

Winner of the International Studies Association's Best Book Award, 2014.Winner of the J. David Singer Book Award, 2014.Do great leaders make history? Or are they compelled to act by historical circumstance? This debate has remained unresolved since Thomas Carlyle and Karl Marx framed it in the mid-nineteenth century, yet implicit answers inform our policies and our views of history. In this book, Professor Bear F. Braumoeller argues persuasively that both perspectives are correct: leaders shape the main material and ideological forces of history that subsequently constrain and compel them. The result is "the first logically sound and empirically tested systemic theory of international relations"--a synthesis of Realist and liberal IR theory that far exceeds the sum of its parts. His studies of the Congress of Vienna, the interwar period, and the end of the Cold War illustrate this dynamic, and the data he marshals provide systematic evidence that leaders both shape and are constrained by the structure of the international system. 

Product Description: What does it mean to be a great power? What role do great powers have in managing international order, and is that role still relevant in a globalizing world? Are new great powers likely to emerge? If so, to what effect? Addressing this set of questions, Nick Bisley provides a historically informed and theoretically grounded analysis of the part that great powers play in contemporary world politics...read more

Product Description: This book addresses the importance of the status dimension of major powers, the potential for status competition between them, and the aspirations of regional powers to become major global powers. The authors propose a new method of assessing the extent to which both major global powers and regional powers are attributed status, whether or not such status attribution results in status underachievement or overachievement (status inconsistency), and through a variety of cases, explore the consequences of status inconsistencies for international politics...read more