The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism

Political realism is a highly diverse body of international relations theory. This substantial reference work examines political realism in terms of its history, its scientific methodology and its normative role in international affairs.

Split into three sections, it covers the 2000-year canon of realism: the different schools of thought, the key thinkers and how it responds to foreign policy challenges faced by individual states and globally. It brings political realism up-to-date by showing where theory has failed to keep up with contemporary problems and suggests how it can be applied and adapted to fit our new, globalised world order.

Robert Schuett is an independent researcher based in Vienna. He has a Ph.D. from the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, UK. His research interests are primarily based in political philosophy and international theory. He is the author of Political Realism, Freud, and Human Nature in International Relations (Palgrave, 2010) and the editor of The Concept of the State in International Relations: Philosophy, Sovereignty and Cosmopolitanism (Edinburgh University Press, 2015).

Miles Hollingworth is an independent scholar, currently living in Northern Italy. He is the author of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Oxford University Press, 2018), Inventing Socrates (Bloomsbury, 2015), Saint Augustine of Hippo (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Pilgrim City (Bloomsbury, 2010). He is the founder and series editor of Reading Augustine (Bloomsbury).