Product Description

In this, his most systematic and fundamental work, Hedley Bull explores three key questions: what is the nature of order in world politics?; how is it maintained in the contemporary state system?; and what alternative paths to world order are feasible and desirable? He argues that the system of sovereign states is not in decline and is not an obstacle to world order but its essential foundation. This third edition, marking the 25th anniversary of original publication, includes a substantial new foreword by Andrew Hurrell examining the continuing relevance of "The Anarchical Society" to subsequent developments in theory and in the structures and practices of world politics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197960 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
HEDLEY BULL was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford, until his untimely death in 1985. He had previously been Professor of International Relations, Australian National University. - STANLEY HOFFMAN is Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France, and Chairman of the Center for European Studies, Harvard University. - ANDREW HURRELL is Lecturer in International Relations and Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Customer Reviews

An Outsatnding Work on the International System - Brilliant
I read this work as part of my MA in International Studies. It is awesome in its breadth and and amazing in its simplicity. A must for any student of the subject, you cannot do without it.

A very structured kind of anarchy
In many ways a textbook setting out the basic history and distinctions of order, states, systems, values, diplomacy, war and the like. This rigorous laying out of definitions and altering conceptions sometimes leads to insights but more often functions to set the starting coordinates for other work and other thought. Valuable for its insistence that order should not trump justice, but rather side-stepping this by not studying justice in itself or trying to negotiate the tensions between them beyond an attempt to 'objectively' set out the issues. Nor does this adequately address, never mind properly describe, realism and idealism as alternative schools. Bull admits that The Anarchical Society is an implicit defence of the states system, which is fine as far as his analysis goes, but one of the weaknesses of such a general study is that we do not really learn what the varieties of international order require, how allegiances are won and enemies extinguished at the human level and what the costs are, not only of prospective change, but of maintaining what is.