Drawing on a tripartite taxonomy first suggested by the so-called English School of International Relations--a Hobbesian tradition of power politics, a Grotian tradition of concern with the rules that govern relations between states, and a Kantian tradition of thinking which transcends the existence of the states system--this book discusses the thinking of central political theorists about the modern states system. Thinkers covered are Hobbes, Grotius, Kant, Victoria, Rousseau, Smith, Burke, Hegel, Gentz and Vattel.