History and Neorealism

Ernest R. May was Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard University and a renowned historian of international relations and foreign policy. Richard Rosecrance is Adjunct Professor in the Kennedy School of Government and Director of the Project on US-Chinese Relations at the Belfer Center, Harvard University. He is also Research Professor in the Department of Political Science, UCLA. Zara Steiner is Senior Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.

'This book by three eminent scholars is audacious in its hope: since history shows that nations do not always obey the rules of pure power politics, a world of consent and cooperation is possible – and ever more likely. They buttress their case with a wealth of data from the American, European and Asian experience, presenting an original synthesis of history and theory that has become far too rare in the field of international relations.' Josef Joffe, Senior Fellow, Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

• 1. Theory and international history Ernest R. May, Richard Rosecrance and Zara Steiner; 2. Transformations in power Richard Rosecrance; 3. Domestically driven deviations: internal regimes, leaders, and realism's power line John M. Owen IV; 4. How international institutions affect outcomes Robert O. Keohane and Lisa Martin; 5. Not even for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: power and order in the early modern era Paul W. Schroeder; 6. Austria-Hungary and the coming of the First World War Samuel R. Williamson Jr; 7. British decisions for peace and war 1938–1939: the rise and fall of realism Zara Steiner; 8. Realism and risk in 1938: German foreign policy and the Munich crisis Niall Ferguson; 9. Domestic politics, interservice impasse, and Japan's decisions for war Michael Barnhart; 10. Military audacity: Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and China's adventure in Korea Andrew Kennedy; 11. The United States' underuse of military power Ernest R. May; 12. The overuse of American power Robert S. Litwak; 13. Redrawing the Soviet power line: Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko; 14. Shared sovereignty in the European Union: Germany's economic governance Sherrill Brown Wells and Samuel F. Wells Jr; 15. John Mearsheimer's 'elementary geometry of power': Euclidean moment or an intellectual blind alley? Jonathan Haslam; 16. History and neorealism reconsidered Richard Rosecrance and Zara Steiner.