You're recommending Man, The State, and War?? That's almost as bad as the fact that I've given The Tragedy of Great Power Politics as a birthday present... Classics of IR Theory sounds like it'd be a cool class, though. Carr, Hobbes, Kant, and Thucydides... it's so... Chicago.

And how. I nearly vomited when I had to buy "Theory of International Politics" for my grad course in IR theory. Almost $75.00, and it's not even a hardcover! Sure, it has nice glossy pages, but I'll trade those for nasty, ink-absorbing pages anyday if it means saving a few bucks. (Or a lot of bucks, in this case.) Victimizing impoverished graduate students...you can't get much lower than that.

I actually got my paperback copy of ToIPol used for $45. At the used book sale where I got it, the checker first started to ring it up at $4.50, then did a double take, and asked if I was sure I wanted to pay $45 for this. Alas, I was sure.

Great class. I've long advocated pairing Locke and Hobbes to capture the essence of the neorealism/neoliberalism debate.

I tried to do something similar this semester, but had to deal with the limitations of its being an masters course.

A quick recommendation: if you're combining Hobbes and Locke with Went and Snyder, you should really add the first half of Rouesseau's Second Discourse, which could be taken to represent the systemic-constructivist position on the state of nature. If you're really ambitious, the first part of G.W.F. Hegel's Natural Law: The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, Its Place in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law, in which Hegel takes Hobbes, Locke, and their ilk to task for imputing backwards onto the state of nature the very characteristics that would justify their vision of political authority.

I haven't taught Hegel's essay in this way, but I've found Rousseau a useful supplement to Locke and Hobbes for the purposes of the contemporary debate over anarchy.

This might be "very Chicago," but it is also "very Columbia." Columbia's Western Civilization course, AFAIK, predates Chicago's.

Ah, but I believe Chicago's "great books" program, the legacy of which lives on in the Core (which, in my mind, is the heart of Chicago qua Chicago,) predates Columbia's coursework.

Purely as a matter of opinion (on which I think happens to be correct, albeit) I'd take someone who has gone through Chicago's core over someone who has gone through Columbia's in an intellectual or academic showdown any day of the week. But, I've had this argument before and, well... I'm biased. (Chicago A.B., '04)

Such infighting aside, Chicago and Columbia should both be commended on their dedication to such education (Columbia has even staked it's Title IV funds on it!)

With reference to the price of Waltz's books and the various posts and comments on the same, I have to agree that buying Keohane's reader is a much better move (that's what we read in my IR field seminar.)

Philip,

I hate to break it to you, but Columbia's came first. Of course, which came first doesn't tell us anything about the current quality of the courses. From my perspective, many of the offerings at Chicago look more interesting. On the other hand, I did teach in Columbia's Contemporary Civilization program, and I have nothing but praise for it -- even if it does suffer from the "Tuesday, Hegel; Thursday, Marx" problem.

In fact, the best program of this type is not a general core, but an honors concentration at Harvard known as Social Studies.

This is one Yankee fan who can't wait to read O'Nan & Kings book "Faithful etc". What Boston did this year was so good for baseball it goes beyond team rooting interest. It hurt to lose but what a way to go. Now we will have to deal with the drug use issues that have really dampened the great season ending play of Boston.