Customer Reviews

Essentials of International Relations, Second Edition (The Norton Series in World Politics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I assigned the text for a survey course on IR after a previous class found Baylis & Smith to be too difficult to absorb in a 10-week term. Positive elements of Mingst include logical organization, concise and enjoyable writing style, and clear definitions of core concepts. However:
(1) Mingst does little to address the major challenge in teaching IR in the US: i.e., getting students to think out of the mindset of seeing interstate and transnational relations from the US perspective.
(2) Coverage of IR theory appears somewhat dated: there is a lengthy discussion of the 80+ year-old geopolitical theories of Mahan and Mackinder, but very poor coverage of Marxist and radical theory (e.g., Wallerstein), and limited discussion of Huntington and the neo-realists.
(3) The inevitable chapter on the history of the international relations system is heavily biased by a Eurocentric realist perspective, especially in its coverage of the 19th century.
In summary, Mingst's work is popular with students and can be useful as an IR primer, but the instructor should expect to work hard to ensure that the class has a balanced, truly global up-to-date perspective on this subject.

it's sad that so many students seem to be attracted to "Essentials of International Relations" due to its prose and organization, because its substance is pitiful. I had the displeasure of serving as a Teaching Assistant for a freshman-level course that used this text and could not believe the number of inaccuracies, misleading statements, contradictions, and outright flaws.

for example, Dr. Mingst properly uses the definitions of "deterrence" and "compellence" from Tom Schelling, the recent Nobel Laureate. But then she proceeds to get compellence exactly wrong when she claims that "compellence ends once the use of force begins." Apparently she didn't read (or understand) the chapters in which Schelling shows how war is mainly the use of force in order to compel an adversary. She talks about decisionmaking is affected at the individual level by "mirror images" -- absolutely. But then she "explains" the concept exactly wrong as the "tendency of individuals and groups to see in one's opponent the opposite of characteristics seen in oneself." Rather, mirror imaging refers to the tendency of understanding the actions of others by assuming that others must have the same characteristics as oneself -- "he/she must be doing action X for reason Y because only reason Y would cause me to do action X"

in other words, I had three types of students -- (1) the ones who didn't read it; (2) the smart ones who read it, understood its flaws, and sought clarifications; and (3) the not-so-smart ones who read it, and took its flaws as truth. In the end, I felt sorry for all three groups, but most so for the last. It is a waste of money, a waste of time, and a waste of Norton's opportunity to provide a clear and credible IR text.

This is one of the best freshmen level textbooks i have come across. The author does an excellent job of summarizing the main theoretical approaches to IR and provides useful introductions to such issues areas as security, international political economy, and international organization. My students find the tables and theory summaries very useful. The book will fit well with many of the IR readers that are available on the markt

This book is disappointing.
The book starts with, and then each chapter returns rather clunkily to, the division between liberalists, realists, radicalists, etc.
As in:
This is the international system. This is how liberalists see it...and realists...and radicalists...
This is war and strife. This is how liberalists see it... and realists...
etc.
You get the idea!
This makes for a fatally dull and "heavy" approach to a discipline that can be so exciting if handled properly. Mingst gives students the impression that the whole point of IR is trying to decide which of the -isms is the most valid.
It would have been much better to take a less theory-laden approach in the early chapters, allowing students to come up with their own explanations/interpretations of things, and then introduce all the -isms in later chapters.
Finally, the book is just not very clearly written. More than once I was at a loss to explain sentences that my students asked me to explain.

This book easily summarizes all of the key concepts to get you through those tough intro to IR courses. All of my friends at Georgetown were borrowing this book, because it was so helpful and easy to read.

A must!!!

This is a Handbook for anybody who wishes to understand the basics of international relations. it gives all the theory aproaches and the cases. basically it gives all the necesary tools to understand today world.