Customer Reviews

The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)

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I have heard a lot of good things about Kal HOlsti, and I've seen his works cited in a lot of IR books. But I've got to say, I was a little disappointed with this book. There seems to be a lot of hype and not that much substance. Anyway, my thoughts on this book...

This book argues that the traditional ways of analyzing the international system and war are inappropriate in the context of intrastate conflict and wars. However, if this is the argument, then why isn't there more of an emphasis on new analytical tools? The first half of the book spends an inordinate amount of time going over basic IR notions and theories like Thomas Hobbes, the Westphalian system, Rousseau, Morgenthau and so on. Some of this book's observations seem a bit redundant. Like the colonial powers didn't intend their colonies to eventually become participatory democracies. Well, that's an obvious if redundant statement. I think I found this book a little dry because it still is Euro-centric and very theoretical even though it posits that Euro-centrism isn't necessarily the best way to view intrastate conflicts. However, I'm going to give Holsti another try and read another of his books.

As a student of Professor Holsti at the Univ. of BC, I could not help but to be impressed with this book. He gives an indepth historical survey of Mankind's war, then focuses on what he dubs as the "wars of the third kind" or low-intensity conflict. He documents case studies on each wars of the third kind, then focuses on what can be done to resolve this new type of conflict.

Two thumbs up, Professor Holsti!

Jeong Lee