Reddit reviews International Relations Theories

We used International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity in the IR class I was assisting in and I thought it did a pretty good job of presenting the main theories. If for some reason you can read French, I would also recommend Théories des relations internationales by Dario Battistella.

Hah, it is hard to point at a particular book. International Relations Theories is something I remember reading during our courses.

Regarding the actual key books of particular thinkers to these fields, and basically the roots of many of the streams, here are some well known:

Realism: Morgenthau - Politics Among Nations

Liberalism: Angell - The Great Illusion

neo-Realism: Waltz - Theory of International Politics

neo-Liberalism: Keohane - After Hegemony

Constructivism: Wendt - Social Theory of International Politics

If you were to read them, I would suggest reading them in that order.

There are of course many more and some would likely pest me for omitting other books. And I haven't even mentioned/included all the streams. The field of International Relations is basically concentrated around "the great debates" of various streams on various issues. There are other fascinating books but I think that these in particular have some special weight in it. In fact, if you wanted, I still have somewhere the list of the required readings for our Theories course, with the main streams and a few books to each to get the gist of it.

Also another thing that might help you understand the issues better is to check out the history of 19th/20th century. Doesn't have to be in-depth. Funnily enough, even with these books the context is important. Or at least revealing. When the books were written, what happened during that time, what inspired these books. Much of the IR field was influenced by historical events.