Contemporary International Relations is as much a conversation between the living and the dead as it is among the living. Its debates are thoroughly rooted in and shaped by the thought of many bygone minds, both ancient and modern. With this in mind, The Return of the Theorists presents forty imagined dialogues with foundational theorists. They run the gamut from Homer and Confucius to Hedley Bull and Jean Bethke Elshtain, and span almost three millennia of human history, comprising representatives of a variety of cultures. The interviewers consist of more than forty international relations scholars and political theorists. They too cut across cultures, continents and almost three generations, and each is an expert on the work of the thinker invited. The Return of the Theorists will be of interest to anyone who has tried to enter the mind of bygone thinkers in political thought and International Relations.

Richard Ned Lebow is Professor of International Political Theory in the War Studies Department of King's College London, Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge and the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor (Emeritus) of Government at Dartmouth College. His most recent publications are Franz Ferdinand Lives: A World Without World War I, Constructing Cause in International Relations and, co-authored with Simon Reich, Goodbye Hegemony! Rethinking America's Role in the World (all titles published in 2014).

Peer Schouten is a postdoctoral researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and editor-in-chief of Theory Talks. He works on issues ranging from International Relations Theory to mining-related conflicts in Central Africa.

Hidemi Suganami was Professor of the Philosophy of International Relations at Keele before joining Aberystwyth University in 2004. His major works include The Domestic Analogy and Word Order Proposals (1989); On the Causes of War (1996); and, with Andrew Linklater, The English School of International Relations (2006).

Introduction; The Editors
1. Homer (c. 850 BCE); Richard Ned Lebow
2. Conversations with Confucius (551-479 BCE); Pichamon Yeophantong
3. Lao Zi (6th-5th century BCE?): Dao of International Politics; Chen Yudan
4. Thucydides (c.460 c. 395 BCE): A Theorist for All Time; Richard Ned Lebow
5. Discussing War with Plato (429 347 BCE); Christopher Coker
6. Aristotle (384 322 BCE): The Philosopher and the Discipline; Anthony F Lang, Jr.
7. Two Realisms of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 1527) ; Erica Benner
8. Thomas Hobbes (1588 1679) ; Michael C. Williams
9. An Interview with John Locke (1632-1704) ; Beate Jahn
10. Two Days in the Life of 'Dave' Hume (1711 1776) ; Hidemi Suganami
11. The Dangers of Dependence: Sultan's Conversation with his Master Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778); David Boucher
12. Immanuel Kant (1724 1804): A Little Kantian 'Schwaermerei'; Friedrich Kratochwil
13. A Fine Bromance: Immanuel Kant (1724 1804) and Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 1527) ; Seán Molloy
14. G.W.F. Hegel (1770 1831) and International Relations; Richard Beardsworth
15. A Brief Encounter with Major-General Carl von Clausewitz (1780 1831); Jan Willem Honig
16. A Conversation with Karl Marx (1818 1883) on why there is no Socialism in the United States; Joshua Simon
17. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 1900); Tracy B. Strong
18. Émile Durkheim (1858 1917); Bertrand Badie
19.Theory Talk #-100: John Dewey (1859 1952) on the Horror of Making his Poetry Public; Christian Bueger and Peer Schouten
20. Max Weber (1864 1920); Richard Ned Lebow
21. The Republic of Norman Angell (1872 1967): A Dialogue (with apologies to Plato); Lucian Ashworth
22. Functionalism in Uncommon Places: Electrifying the Hades with David Mitrany (1888 1975); Jens Steffek
23. Dialogue with Arnold Wolfers (1892 1968); James W. Davis
24. E. H. Carr (1892 1982); Mick Cox
25. Modernity, Technology and Global Security: A Conversation with Lewis Mumford (1895-1990); Rens van Munster and Casper Sylvest
26. More Fragments of an Intellectual Biography: Hans J. Morgenthau (19041980); William E. Scheuerman
27. The Return of the Spectateur Engagé: Interview with Raymond Aron (1905 1983); Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia
28. Hannah Arendt (1906 1975); Kimberly Huntchings
29. Interview with John Herz (1908 2005); Andrew Lawrence
30. Interview with Charles P. Kindleberger (1910 2003), The Reputed Progenitor of Hegemonic Stability Theory; Simon Reich
31. Karl Deutsch (1912 1992) Interviewed; Andrei Markovits
32. International Theory beyond the Three Traditions: A Student's Conversation with Martin Wight (1913 1972); Ian Hall
33. John Rawls (1921 2002); Huw L. Williams
34. The Spirit of Susan Strange (1923-1998); Louis Pauly
35. Questioning Kenneth N. Waltz (1924 2013); HidemiSuganami and Adam Humphreys
36. Frantz Fanon (1925-1961); Rita Abrahamsen
37. Deep Hanging Out with Michel Foucault (1926-1984); Iver Neumann
38. Interviewing Pierre Bourdieu (1930 2002) about Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations; Anna Leander
39. Hedley Bull (1932 1985); Robert Ayson
40. Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941 2013): A Woman's Refuge, Baghdad, Summer 2015; Caroline Kennedy-Pipe
Conclusions; The Editors