Notes on Chapter 2

Be sure to pay careful attention to the evolution of the nation-state part of this chapter. It'll come up later in Chs. 4 & 6. But at this point you should become familiar w/ the concepts of "state" and "sovereignty" and their implications. Also, you should know what the Westphalia Treaty was about.

If you can, it'd be a good idea to find out a bit more about the Thirty Years' War (ended by the Treaty of Westphalia), as well as the First & Second World Wars. We'll talk a bit about them in class, so be at least a bit familiar w/ how they played out (especially the later two). If we've time, we'll also look at the Napoleonic Wars.

This is a short chapter, so I want us to get a better sense of the history of the nation-state system before we turn to later chapters of the book which deal almost exclusively w/ the future of that system, and whether it's evolving into something else.

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UPDATE: I've decided to cover some more historical background on the nation-state system not covered in the text. So, I'll take a 30 minute break to briefly lay out some of this historical context, and introduce two important figures in realist political thought: Machiavelli & Clausewitz. I'm including here some links on Machiavelli, Clausewitz, the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, the League of Nations, and the Second World War (from Wikipedia). I don't expect you to read them before the morning class, but they're there for you if you're interested.