January this year marked a significant milestone for The Book Review: fifty years of sustained engagement with books, ideas, and debates that shape intellectual and public life. Over these five decades, the journal has accompanied—and critically reflected upon—major transformations in politics and international relations: decolonization and the Cold War, the emergence of new states and new powers, the deepening of globalization, and the recurrent crises of order and authority that define the contemporary moment. This special issue on Politics and International Relations is offered in that reflective spirit, attentive both to continuity and to change.
Politics and International Relations draw their vitality from moments of uncertainty. Periods of apparent stability often generate settled orthodoxies; periods of flux compel rethinking, reinterpretation, and renewed intellectual effort. The present global condition—marked by geopolitical realignments, economic stress, technological acceleration, and contested ideas of order—has made such reflection unavoidable. The books reviewed in this issue respond to this condition not by advancing a single diagnosis, but by illuminating the many ways in which power, ideas, institutions, and histories intersect in a changing world.
A striking feature of the scholarship gathered here is its insistence on historicizing the present. Whether addressing global order, regional conflict, diplomatic practice, or domestic political change, many authors return to longer historical trajectories to make sense of contemporary dilemmas. International Relations, long criticized for presentism and narrow theoretical frames, appears increasingly attentive to history, culture, and political context. Studies revisiting the Cold War, reassessing nonalignment, or examining the postcolonial foundations of global governance remind us that today’s anxieties about fragmentation, rivalry, or decline are not unprecedented, even if their configurations are new.
Another recurring theme across this issue is the erosion of certainties that once structured international politics. Assumptions about stable alliances, predictable multilateralism, or linear progress towards cooperation are being questioned across regions. Several works examine how institutions created to manage global problems—from trade to security—now struggle to command consensus or legitimacy. Others explore how middle powers and regional actors navigate uncertainty, seeking autonomy without isolation, and influence without overreach. The picture that emerges is neither of a neatly ordered multipolar world nor of a coherent new global system, but of overlapping arenas of power, negotiation, and contestation.
Asia occupies a central place in these discussions. No longer treated merely as a passive theatre for external rivalry, it emerges as a region with its own intellectual traditions, strategic agency, and internal debates. Analyses of India, China, South Asia, and West Asia underscore how regional dynamics increasingly shape global outcomes, while cautioning against viewing Asia as monolithic. The diversity of political systems, historical experiences, and strategic cultures within the region complicates easy generalizations and demands careful, context-sensitive analysis.
India’s role in this evolving landscape receives particular attention. Several contributions revisit India’s diplomatic traditions—especially nonalignment and strategic autonomy—not as static doctrines but as evolving responses to changing international conditions. Rather than framing these ideas nostalgically or polemically, the works reviewed here treat them as intellectual resources for thinking through contemporary choices. They also situate India’s external engagements within broader debates about development, democracy, security, and regional responsibility, encouraging readers to see foreign policy as inseparable from domestic priorities and historical experience.
Equally significant is the attention paid to themes that blur the boundary between the international and the domestic. Issues of citizenship, migration, inequality, gender, and information are no longer confined within national borders. Books on law, human security, media, and social movements reveal how global processes are refracted through local institutions and everyday lives. This scholarship challenges the traditional separation between ‘high politics’ and social concerns, suggesting instead that power operates through quotidian practices as much as through formal diplomacy.
The presence of studies on war and conflict reflects the sobering reality that violence remains a persistent feature of international life. Yet these works are notable for their analytical restraint. Rather than sensationalism, they emphasize institutional learning, strategic calculation, and the ethical dilemmas that accompany the use of force. In doing so, they contribute to a more measured understanding of security—one that recognizes both its necessity and its costs.
Taken together, the books reviewed in this issue testify to the vitality and diversity of contemporary scholarship in Politics and International Relations. They do not converge on a single worldview, nor do they prescribe uniform solutions. Their value lies instead in plurality: of methods, perspectives, and questions. At a time when public discourse often demands quick judgments and simplified narratives, such work insists on complexity, evidence, and sustained engagement.
As The Book Review enters its sixth decade, this commitment remains central. Books continue to offer a space for reflection that resists the pressures of immediacy, allowing ideas to be tested, revised, and understood in depth. In presenting this special issue, we hope not only to inform debate but also to reaffirm the journal’s enduring role—across fifty years—in fostering thoughtful, critical engagement with the political and international worlds we inhabit.
Adnan Farooqui is Professor, Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia. The views expressed are personal.