Before Colonization

Ayşe Zarakol, professor of international relations, University of Cambridge:
Before Colonization is one of the most exciting IR books in recent memory. Butcher and Griffiths significantly expand the field’s historical imagination by rethinking the state to properly include non-Western examples. They also manage the very difficult task of building a dataset with a degree of historical sensitivity. This allows them to present the nineteenth century in an entirely novel light. For all these reasons, Before Colonization is a must-read book for anyone interested in IR theory, historical IR, state systems, sovereignty, and international order.

J. C. Sharman, Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations, University of Cambridge:
For too long the study of international systems has been parochially European or anecdotal. More than any other recent book, Before Colonization transcends these limits in presenting the big picture of international politics in genuinely global terms. Thanks to Butcher and Griffiths's inspiring scholarship, we can now much better see the wood for the trees in understanding the broad sweep of interactions among war, state formation, and system transformation before the mass extinction of non-Western polities occasioned by European imperialism.