Assessing the development of the discipline of international relations, the author presents both a summary of the field's significant findings and a critical discussion of its most representative traditions of realism and liberalism. Written between 1960 and 1985, many of these essays have not been previously published in English.

Preface -- Theories and Theorists -- An American Social Science: International Relations -- Rousseau on War and Peace -- Raymond Aron and the Theory of International Relations -- Hans Morgenthau: The Limits and Influence of "Realism" -- Order and Violence -- Is There an International Order? -- The Future of the International Political System: A Sketch -- International Systems and International Law -- The Problem of Intervention -- Nuclear Worries: France and the United States -- Actors and Interactions -- On the Origins of the Cold War -- Grasping the Bear: Patterns and Puzzles of Soviet International Behavior -- Cries and Whimpers: Thoughts on West European-American Relations in the 1980s -- Domestic Politics and Interdependence -- Sermons and Suggestions -- International Organization and the International System -- Taming the Eagle: U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security -- Beyond Terror? -- Reaching for the Most Difficult: Human Rights as a Foreign Policy Goal -- Liberalism and International Affairs -- On the Political Psychology of Peace and War: A Critique and an Agenda -- Conclusion -- The Sound and the Fury: The Social Scientist Versus War in History