Understanding International Relations, Third Edition

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001). John Ikenberry (ed.), America
Unrivalled: The Future of the Balance of Power (2002a) is another very good
collection.
For early post-Cold War thought: President George Bush announced the
dawning of a new age in ‘Toward a New World Order’ (1990). Graham Allison
and Gregory F. Treverton (eds) Rethinking America’s Security: Beyond Cold
War to New World Order (1992) is a very useful collection of essays. Robert W.
Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation: The New World
Order and American’s Purpose (1992), is a critique of the New World Order
from an ‘old realist’ perspective. Noam Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New
(1994), presents a ‘left’ viewpoint. Daniel Deudeny and G. John Ikenberry, ‘The
Nature and Sources of Liberal International Order’ (1999), is an excellent dis-
cussion of contemporary liberal internationalism.
On the events of 9/11 and the run-up to that date, the indispensable text is
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’ (2004) an official document which is not simply
authoritative but also very well-written, and available as a very cheap paper-
back, on the principle that an informed citizenry is a national asset – HMSO,
please note. Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (eds) Worlds in Collision (2002) is
a useful, eclectic collection. On 9/11 and the War on Terror other useful collec-
tions are International Security, Special Section, ‘The Threat of Terrorism: US
Policy after September 11th’ (2001/2); Ethics and International Affairs
Roundtable: ‘New Wars – What Rules Apply?’ (2002); International Feminist
Journal of Politics Forum, ‘The Events of 11 September and Beyond’ (2002).
On President Bush’s conduct of the War on Terror, Bob Woodward’s two books
are indispensable, although often the most interesting bits are unsourced:
Bush at War (2002) and Plan of Attack: The Road to War (2004). The 
National Security Strategy of the US, 2002 is available to download online at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf – whether it actually represents a major
change is debatable; see, for instance, Ethics and International Affairs
Roundtable: ‘Evaluating the Pre-Emptive Use of Force’ (2003).
Good scholarly general studies of US foreign policy in the Bush years
include: I. Daalder and J. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in
Foreign Policy (2003), Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone:
The Neo-Conservatives and Global Order (2004) and James Mann, The Rise

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Understanding International Relations
of the Vulcans (2004). Think-pieces abound on this subject – apart from those
mentioned in the main text, good and/or representative are Joseph Nye, The
Paradox of American Power (2002), and Soft Power (2004); Walter Russell
Mead, Power, Terror, Peace and War (2004); Michael Mann, Incoherent
Empire (2003), Benjamin Barber, Fear’s Empire (2004); John Lewis Gaddis,
Surprise, Security and the American Experience (2004). Noam Chomsky,
Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (2004) could
be read alongside the Review of International Studies ‘Forum on Chomsky’
(2003) which contains a number of excellent studies of his thought.
On Imperial America, Ignatieff and Ferguson are referenced in the text. The
National Interest, Special Issue on ‘Empire?’ (2003) has important essays by
Snyder and Rosen. Ethics and International Affairs, Special Section: The Revival
of Empire (2003) is a useful source of ideas. The Review of International Studies
Forum on the American Empire (2004) contains significant essays by Michael
Cox and John Ikenberry. Pierre Hassner, The United States: The Empire of Force
or the Force of Empire (2002), presents a French view. Andrew Bacevich,
American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), is
a pre-9/11 perspective. Historical depth is provided by Michael Cox (eds)
Empires, Systems and States (2001). Useful individual essays include: Michael
Cox, ‘The Empire’s Back in Town: Or America’s Imperial Temptation – again’
(2003), David C. Hendrickson, ‘Towards Universal Empire: The Dangerous
Quest for Absolute Security’ (2002), John Ikenberry, ‘America’s Imperial
Ambition’ (2002b), Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, ‘American Primacy
in perspective’ (2002).
On Hardt and Negri’s Empire, see, for a clear exposition, Gopal Balakrishnan,
‘Virgilian Visions’ (2000) and for commentary, Tarak Barkawi and Mark
Laffey, ‘Retrieving the Imperial: Empire and International Relations’ (2002),
and the Millennium Exchange, ‘What Empire: Whose Empire?’ (2002).
On the Iraq war and aftermath, most of the above works on US foreign
policy have something to say, and will be added to over the coming months and
years. Most of these books are very critical of the enterprise – in the interests of
balance, see The National Interest Forum on Iraq (2004) for a surprising range
of opinion, and Christopher Hitchens, The Long Short War: The Postponed
Liberation of Iraq (2003), also published as Regime Change, as always, 
a contrarian. Christoph Bluth, ‘The British road to war: Blair, Bush and the
decision to invade Iraq’ (2004), is broadly sympathetic to the case for war. On
the intra-Western politics of Iraq see P. Gordon and J. Shapiro, Allies at War
(2004), William Shawcross, Allies (2004), and Timothy Garton Ash, Free
World: Why a Crisis of the West Reveals an Opportunity of our Time (2004).
Michael Moore’s tracts Dude, Where’s My Country (2004a) and Stupid
White Men (2004b), along with his film Fahrenheit 9/11, are entertaining and
have earned him a following, but should be read (if at all) alongside David
Hardy and Jason Clarke’s informatively titled Michael Moore is a Big Fat
Stupid White Man (2004).

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