Currently Reading It has always surprised? confused? me how often the Treaty of Westphalia is referenced (blamed?), 375 years later, in relation to current international relations. Let us know what you think when you're done. — T Clark
The book was very interesting and certainly worth a read. While the book's main thrust is to revaluate the Treaty of Westphalia's historical relevancy in modern International Relations in contrast to the (then?) dominate theories of IR, primarily Neorealism and Constructivism, Teschke goes beyond the Baroque period, analyzing Feudal and Absolutist modes of production and property relation in order to establish the Treaty of Westphalia as a outcome of continental European Absolutism, i.e. pre-modern. Modernity, or rather the modernizing process of IR, according to Teschke, begins with the uneven and combined development of the nascent agrarian capitalist Britain as it struggles with continental European powers. In addition to critiquing Neorealism and Constructivism, Teschke examines theories of Capitalist origin and development, siding with Political Marxism, which at the time of publication was at the apex of it's orthodoxy. He does a very good job of outlining Political Marxist viewpoints and contrasting them with World-Systems Theory, and the former's relationship with alternative International Theories. However, here Teschke, as with other Political Marxists (e.g. Wood, Brenner), falls into the theoretical limitations and historical narrowness of Political Marxism, as expounded by Neil Davidson, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu et. al. Certainly well worth reading.