Abstract

Concluding the Deutscher Memorial Prize winning trilogy on 'Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy', this is a magisterial historical sociology of International Relations theory.

In The Discipline of Western Supremacy Kees van der Pijl argues that, from the late European Middle Ages, Anglophone thinkers articulated an imperial world-view which was adopted by aspirant elites elsewhere. Nation-state formation under the auspices of the English-speaking West has henceforth informed thinking about international affairs. After decolonisation the study of comparative politics continued to develop under those same auspices as part of a comprehensive framework.

As the first major sociological analysis of the field of International Relations, this book advances a comprehensive overview of mainstream IR as a set of theories which translate Western supremacy into intellectual hegemony.
'A work to ponder and challenge and be challenged by as it exposes the intellectual and political origins of the operations of American academia'
Irene Gendzier, Boston University (Emeritus)
'Shows in an incredibly informed and fascinating way the historical roots and, mechanisms of the making of this supremacy. And its severe crisis. Historical materialist analysis at its best'
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brand, Chair of International Politics at the University of Vienna
'Concluding an intellectually ambitious trilogy covering international relations across the ages, this audacious analysis of the American discipline of international relations is self-consciously written from the margin'
Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter Jr., Professor of International Studies, Cornell University
'Challenges us to understand the world in its full complexity and contradictory actuality'
Peter Bratsis, Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Salford