Review of MGIMO Textbook “History of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy in the 20th Century” in International Affairs Journal

13 August 2020

A review of the textbook “History of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy in the 20th Century”, edited by A.Torkunov, B.Martynov and W.Wohlforth was published in the British academic journal International Affairs.

Cambridge Scholars Publishing released the two-volume textbook in February. International Affairs is jointly published by Chatham House and Oxford University and is the fourth most impactful academic journal in the field of International Relations globally.

Elizabeth Buchanan, a professor at Deakin University in Australia and a researcher at the Modern War Institute at West Point (USA) is the author of the review. In her opinion, the textbook provides "an in-depth analysis of critical moments in international affairs of the twentieth century” and “Uniquely, the contributors present a view of twentieth-century political history through a Russian lens”. The reviewer notes how in the first volume the authors highlight “overlapping state interests as well as clear fractures between the USSR and the United States and its allies” as well as the "Russian conceptual view of international relations and threats to European security" in the interwar period. E. Buchanan also shows an interest in how the “domestic Russian narrative, which distinguishes between the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War” is explained. In the second volume which considers world history after WW2, the reviewer's attention focuses on how “domestic changes within the USSR and United States explain relations between the two over this period” and “the Russian view of the origins of the Cold War”. The reviewer also pays attention to “the early significance to Moscow of the ASEAN construct and of the south-east Asian region. This contrasts with contemporary assessments that Russian (and western) ‘pivots’ to Asia are facets only of twenty- first-century international affairs”.

E.Buchanan concludes that: “Churchill once said that ‘the further backward you look, the further forward you can see’. These two volumes allow us to do just that –to look backward to see the future potential trajectories of the international security landscape.”

We hope that this review and other upcoming ones of the textbook “History of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy in the 20th Century” will stimulate further discussions among historians in the international community specialised in international relations and the foreign policy of Russia in the XX and XXI centuries.