Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2117: Great Power Politics

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

(This reading list is indicative– it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list.)

  • John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001)
  • Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987)
  • Dale C. Copeland, The Origins of Major War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000)
  • Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)
  • Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)
  • Stacie E. Goddard, When Right Makes Might: Rising Powers and World Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018)
  • Paul K. MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent, Twilight of the Titans: Great Power Decline and Retrenchment (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018)
  • David M. Edelstein, Over the Horizon: Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017)
  • David M. McCourt, Britain and World Power since 1945: Constructing a Nation’s Role in International Politics (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2014)
  • Michael Beckley, Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018).