Leading historians and political scientists examine the relationship between history and the dominant theory of IR, realism.

1. Theory and international history Ernest R. May, Richard Rosecrance and Zara Steiner; 2. Transformations in power Richard Rosecrance; 3. Domestically driven deviations: internal regimes, leaders, and realism's power line John M. Owen IV; 4. How international institutions affect outcomes Robert O. Keohane and Lisa Martin; 5. Not even for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: power and order in the early modern era Paul W. Schroeder; 6. Austria-Hungary and the coming of the First World War Samuel R. Williamson Jr; 7. British decisions for peace and war 1938¿1939: the rise and fall of realism Zara Steiner; 8. Realism and risk in 1938: German foreign policy and the Munich crisis Niall Ferguson; 9. Domestic politics, interservice impasse, and Japan's decisions for war Michael Barnhart; 10. Military audacity: Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and China's adventure in Korea Andrew Kennedy; 11. The United States' underuse of military power Ernest R. May; 12. The overuse of American power Robert S. Litwak; 13. Redrawing the Soviet power line: Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko; 14. Shared sovereignty in the European Union: Germany's economic governance Sherrill Brown Wells and Samuel F. Wells Jr; 15. John Mearsheimer's 'elementary geometry of power': Euclidean moment or an intellectual blind alley? Jonathan Haslam; 16. History and neorealism reconsidered Richard Rosecrance and Zara Steiner.