History of International Relations

Erik Ringmar

Description

Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues.





The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society.



History of International Relations provides a unique textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, and anybody interested in international relations theory, history, and contemporary politics.

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 02 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781783740253
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS


History of International Relations
A Non-European Perspective
Erik Ringmar






https://www.openbookpublishers.com


© 2019 Erik Ringmar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Erik Ringmar, History of International Relations: A Non-European Perspective . Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2019. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0074
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All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0074#resources
Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher.
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-022-2
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-023-9
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-024-6
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-025-3
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-026-0
ISBN Digital (XML): 978-1-78374-778-8
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0074
Cover image: Al-Idrisi, Tabula Rogeriana (1154), Bibliotheque nationale de France (MSO Arabe 2221). Wikimedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TabulaRogeriana.jpg
Cover design by Anna Gatti.
All paper used by Open Book Publishers is sourced from SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) accredited mills and the waste is disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.


Contents
The Author
vii
Acknowledgments
viii
This book
ix
1. Introduction
Comparative international systems
2
Institutions, rules, and norms
3
Stateless societies
5
Walls and bridges
6
Further reading
10
Think about
11
2. China and East Asia
The Warring States period
14
The development of the Chinese state
19
The overland system
30
The tribute system
33
A Japanese international system?
36
Further reading
40
Timeline
41
Short dictionary
42
Think about
43
3. India and Indianization
Vedic India
46
Classical India
52
Indianization
58
The Mughal Empire
64
India as an international system
67
Timeline
69
Short dictionary
70
Think about
70
4. The Muslim Caliphates
The Arab expansion
74
The Umayyads and the Abbasids
78
The Arabs in Spain
81
An international system of caliphates
86
The Ottoman Empire
91
Further reading
96
Timeline
97
Short dictionary
98
Think about
99
5. The Mongol Khanates
From Temüjin to Genghis Khan
102
A nomadic state
103
How to conquer the world
106
Dividing it all up
112
An international system of khanates
116
Further reading
122
Timeline
123
Short dictionary
124
Think about
125
6. Africa
The Nile River Valley
129
North Africa
131
The kingdoms of West Africa
133
East Africa and the Indian Ocean
139
An African international system?
144
Further reading
146
Timeline
147
Short dictionary
148
Think about
149
7. The Americas
The Maya
152
The Aztecs
160
The Incas
163
North America
170
Further reading
174
Timeline
175
Short dictionary
176
Think about
177
8. European Expansion
A sea route to India
180
Europeans in the “New World”
182
A commercial world economy
186
An industrial world economy
189
The apotheosis of colonialism
194
Decolonization
197
Further reading
200
Timeline
201
Short dictionary
202
Think about
203
Afterthoughts: Walls and Bridges
205


The Author
Erik Ringmar is professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, Turkey. He graduated from Yale University in 1993 with a PhD in political science and has subsequently worked at the London School of Economics and as professor of international politics at Shanghai Jiaotong Daxue in Shanghai, China.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the students who have taken my course on comparative international systems over the past years. They were the first ones to be exposed to the chapters that follow. It is more than anything their questions and objections that have forced me to think harder and explain better. Thanks also to Jorg Kustermans and Victor Friedman who tried out the material in their respective courses and provided feedback. Downloaders and commentators at Academia.edu helped improve the argument as did suggestions from Klara Andrée, Magnus Fiskesjö, Jonas Gjersø, Ville Harle, Markus Lyckman, John Pella, Frank Ejby Poulsen, Diane Pranzo, James C. Scott, Farhan Hanif Siddiqi and Max de Vietri. Thanks also to Alex Astrov, Gunther Hellmann and Iver B. Neumann. The indefatigable librarians at the Internet Archive and Library Genesis provided all the books I needed. Thanks to Julie Linden for proof-reading, to Luca Baffa and Anna Gatti for layout and design, and to Alessandra Tosi for believing in the project and for guiding the text into print. As always, I am indebted to Ko Jenq-Yuh and Hong Ruey-Long.
This book
Names of people and places are generally given in the original language but other versions are included for ease of identification. Hence “Kongzi,” but also “Confucius,” “Palashi,” but also “Plassey.” All years given refer to the Common Era, “CE” or Anno Domini , “AD,” except when indicated. All years associated with names of rulers refer to the length of their reign.
In addition to the main chapters there are a large number of boxes in which more specific topics are introduced. Many of these topics expand on the story told in the main chapters, but some introduce new themes. The purpose is to show the contemporary relevance of the historical material, but also to provide a sense of the culture and traditions of each respective part of the world.
The book is accompanied by a dedicated website: http://ringmar.net/irhistorynew/ . Here you will find links to more material, primary sources and a complete bibliography, as well as podcasts to listen to and video clips to watch. Look out for the Read More call-outs, which link to specific resources in the irhistory website (direct links and QR codes for each webpage are provided for ease of access).


1. Introduction


© 2019 Erik Ringmar, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/ 10.11647/OBP.0074.01
International relations as a university-level topic is usually taught with little historical depth. In an introductory class, your instructor might tell you that the basic rules of international politics were established in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century, or you might hear something about European colonialism in the nineteenth century, and perhaps a word or two about the First World War. Once the class gets going, however, historical references are unlikely to stretch further back than to 1945. It will be as though the world was created less than a hundred years ago.
In addition, international politics, as it is usually taught, is hopelessly Eurocentric. The discipline takes Europe as the standard by which every other part of the world is measured — although “Europe” here also includes the United States and other places where the Europeans settled. The European model is obviously the most important one, your teacher will imply, since this is