Kleinschmidt: History of International Theory Harald Kleinschmidt: The Nemesis of Power: A History of International Relations Theory

Hardcover: 280 pages
Publisher: Reaktion Books 2000
ISBN: 1861890583

Kleinschmidt has translated the history of the world into history of IR theory. The development of international theories has changed the way world's historical progress has evolved and the ways practicers have justified their decisions. Not that all the practitioners have been informed about theories - should they have been, and should they have agreed on the "right" one, the disagreements that resulted in various conflicts and wars would have been avoided.

Kleinschmidt's book - The Nemesis of Power - is a different approach to the interesting topic of international theory. Nemesis of power is a grand name for a book that is in essence a well organized literature review.

"While functionalists took the view that world organization had to be enhanced so as to allow the imposition of constraints upon the governments of sovereign nation-states, ... realists, withdrew to sceptical position that the world could not be organized at all." 216

I borrowed the book because of its chapter on Realism, couldn't ignore the rest and read it thoroughly through. It convinced that my views on the peaceful leitmotiv of Realism are correct. The richness of the tradition comes from its sincerity of achieving goals rather than aiming high.  ¶ 11/08/2006 11:47:00 ip.