This volume brings together a collection of leading scholars to consider various dimensions of the 'turn' to history in International Relations. The scope of this volume is broad. It includes conventional accounts of the development of the European states system, but is not limited by it. Other essays consider the non-European experience; a number of path-breaking essays on how other cultures and continents have ordered their political communities, in particular, the question how and why a states system triumphed over other forms of political organisation. The theme of the subtitle - great transformations - is pursued by each author. The essays consider one of the biggest questions of our time, namely, how did we arrive at this historical and institutional expression of political community? And what alternative future world orders exist? The volume will be of interest to scholars of International Relations and History interested in great transformations in world politics.

Giovanni Arrighi is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Global Studies in Culture, Power and History at The Johns Hopkins University Ian Clark is Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth G. John Ikenberry is Peter F. Krogh Professor of Global Justice at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He previously taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania Robert Jervis is Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University. In 2000-2001 he was President of the American Political Science Association Nancy Kokaz is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department and Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Toronto. Her research and teaching lie at the intersection of political philosophy and international relations Stephen D. Krasner is Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University Hudson Meadwell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University and a Research Associate in the Universite de Montreal-McGill University Research Group in International Security Andreas Osiander studied international relations, history and economics at Tubingen, Paris and Oxford. He has been a junior research fellow at Balliol College, Oxford and held a similar post at the Humboldt University, Berlin Beverly J. Silver is Associate Professor of Sociology at The Johns Hopkins University James Sofka is Resident Scholar at the Center for Governmental Studies and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs in the University of Virginia Carolyn M. Warner is a 2001-02 National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University. Her research on imperialism and state destruction in Africa has appeared in the Review of International Studies, and the Review of International Political Economy William Wohlforth is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College Yongjin Zhang is Fellow at the Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in the Australian National University. His main research interest is China and international society