International Relations Theory: From Ancient Empires to the New World (Dis)Order (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798279429653)

History never ends. It just changes its disguise.

International Relations Theory is a wide-ranging exploration of how civilizations rise, collide, cooperate, and decline - and how these long historical patterns continue to shape today's fractured global landscape. From the earliest empires of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome to the modern system of sovereign states, the book traces the enduring logic of power behind treaties, wars, institutions, and ideologies.

Rather than treating contemporary international politics as an unprecedented crisis, this work argues that today's global (dis)order is the cumulative outcome of centuries of institutional choices, strategic ambitions, and moral compromises.

The book situates the major schools of International Relations - realism, liberalism, constructivism, and critical and post-colonial approaches - within their historical context, showing how each emerged in response to concrete political realities rather than abstract ideals. Theory is treated not as doctrine, but as an interpretive framework for understanding how world orders emerge, stabilize, erode, and are reconstituted in different forms.

At the same time, I would like to temper the reader's expectations. This book is based on my academic course on the Theory of International Relations for the Swiss International Institute Lausanne - SIIL, and therefore the topics discussed remain within the framework of the university curriculum.

Essential reading for students, educators, and global thinkers seeking to understand the forces shaping our fractured world.