100 Books Like Political Theory and International Relations

Books that blur the boundaries between political theory and international history are seldom accessible, of pressing contemporary relevance, and beautifully written—but I found this book to be all three.

Reading this outstanding exposé, the book vividly reminded me of the importance of understanding the decades of decolonization in the Black Atlantic as more than a quest for sovereign statehood and recentering the ways in which the likes of Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere imagined new geographies and, indeed, new worlds. I admire the work in many ways—for its geographical sweep, exemplary pace, and conceptual clarity.

This book illuminates the wrenching moral problems humanitarian international NGOs (like Oxfam and Save the Children) face.

How should NGOs balance their responsibilities to aid those who depend on them with their responsibilities to avoid entrenching that dependency? How should they react when the resources they provide are siphoned off by malicious third parties and used to fuel conflict? Given that NGOs are not democratically elected, can their power over aid recipients be justified?

Rubenstein addresses questions like these, drawing on her expertise as an ethicist and several months of fieldwork. I left this book thinking there were no easy answers to the questions Rubenstein raised—but with a much clearer understanding of the moral considerations I would need to account for if I wanted to answer them for myself.

The first half of this book offers a rich, careful textual engagement with the works of Immanuel Kant and his intellectual descendants. It is sure to be rewarding to those interested in Kant’s cosmopolitanism and its present-day variants.

But, to me, the real beauty of Valdez’s book lies in its second half, where she discusses W.E.B. Du Bois’s political thought and the history of his transnational activism against racism and empire.

Drawing on Du Bois, Valdez presents a radical vision of what democracy and political community can look like beyond the nation-state. She also offers an excellent model of how to discuss oppressed people not as helpless victims, but as political agents in their own right with lessons to teach the world about how best to struggle for justice.

This book questions orthodoxies that need questioning. Shue argues that rights to the goods one needs to survive (like food, potable water, and clean air) are just as morally urgent and just as important to protect as rights to bodily security.

He offers a bold defense of the moral imperative to ensure everyone in the world has their most important rights, including rights to subsistence goods, protected. This, in turn, has significant implications for US foreign policy. It shows the status quo—in which states like the US retain massive amounts of wealth, safeguarding their own citizens’ pursuit of even their most trivial preferences while people elsewhere in the world starve—to be morally indefensible.

This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the actors, interests, and politics that define contemporary global governance. Pouliot and Therien break down the “bricolage” of global governance policy-making, establishing a clear framework and methodological approach for assessing global governance in practice.

This book stands out for its “how-to” approach and reframing of global governance, not as a functional response to global problems but as the outcome of struggles about transboundary practices and universal values. It is a must-read for making sense of the patchwork of our increasingly connected but simultaneously conflicted global society.

I love this book and recommend it often because of its exceptional forecasting ability. Author George Friedman can’t guarantee the future, but his arguments for likely outcomes are exceptionally cogent and well thought through. The book was written in 2009 and well before the COVID-19 pandemic, which changed things considerably in terms of economic impact, labor scarcity, global migration patterns, and so much more.

Still, its findings are more than insightful and combine a well-honed imagination with historical expertise to forecast the 21st century’s likely trajectory by decade, including the United States, Russia, China, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. It provides a healthy perspective and a 30,000-foot view of what we may likely experience as a planet, especially in geopolitical, technical, and cultural terms. 

This is the most compelling explanation for why major wars have started over the last half-millennium. His thesis is very simple: countries are tempted to start wars to conquer their own continents, even if there is a low prospect of success, because the payoff is tremendous.

The U.S., which is the only country to have achieved continental hegemony, pays very little for the cost of its defense because of the protection of the Oceans, and is able to project power to support smaller countries draining the resources of the regional hegemonic candidates on other continents.

This book does not explain most wars, just the ones most likely to involve all of the great powers, nuclear weapons, and to have the greatest impact in terms of the deaths of millions, post-war international institutions, and the most wide-sweeping territorial changes.   

I love this book because it covers the same important topic as Friedman’s The World is Flat, but juxtaposes America against the rest of world, and offers the perspective of a geopolitical expert with roots in both the emerging world (India) and the U.S. Zakaria presents an intuitive understanding of the politics, economics, and culture of these vastly different worlds.

In the three years between the 1st and second edition of this book, global developments followed the trajectory he foresaw, only at an even faster pace than he had predicted.

A central message of the book—sustaining a strong America in today’s world cannot be accomplished by hegemonic domination but by embracing international cooperation—has become more pressing than ever.

Anne Applebaum's book is an engaging meld of reportage and personal anecdotes, which explores why so many people have turned towards authoritarianism and illiberal populism. With a particular focus on Poland, Hungary, and the United States, Applebaum illustrates how populist movements exploit societal fears and divisions to gain and consolidate power.

She argues that populism's appeal lies in its simplistic answers to complex problems and its promise of a return to a mythical, idealized past. For Applebaum, those who become populists aren’t just strangers—they’re her former friends, and she wrestles with the question of why people she once admired have come to support anti-democratic, polarising, and authoritarian governments.

Curious about what democratic governments can do? Check out Applebaum's 2024 book, Autocracy, Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Rule the World.

To understand China today—its ambitions, its assertiveness, and its strategy under Xi Jinping—we need to understand its history and philosophy.

In this book, Henry Kissinger draws on decades of firsthand dialogues and anecdotes he had with Mao and Zhou Enlai, to explain how China views the world. As China blends historical memory with long-term strategic vision, Kissinger shows that China doesn’t just play by different rules—it sees the game differently. This book is essential for anyone seeking to understand China today.