International Relations book features 40 essays

The thing going around is not really a new book launch. It’s an older international relations primer getting fresh attention online — and some of the details in the reposts are off. The book is *International Relations: Basic Concepts & Global Issues* by Shahid Hussain Raja, and the clearest listings point to a second edition published on December 17, 2020. They also say 45 essays, not 40. ### So what is this book, exactly? Basically, it’s a self-contained IR survey for readers who want theory and current-affairs framing in one place. The book description says the first seven essays cover basic concepts in international politics, then the rest move into global issues and big post-Cold War arguments — things like globalization, the Syrian crisis, the “clash of civilizations,” and the “end of history.” ### Why does the essay count matter? Because it tells you whether the viral summary is describing the actual book or just paraphrasing it loosely. The Amazon listing says 45 long-form essays. Goodreads repeats the same structure and count. A Babelcube page tied to the same title mentions 46 longform essays, which suggests listings support the “40 essays” line. ### Is this a multi-scholar anthology? Turns out, no — at least not from the book records I could verify. The main commercial listings present Shahid Hussain Raja as the author, not an editor of a contributed volume. That matters because “anthology” gives a very different impression. It makes you expect a classroom sequence of essays. ### Who is Shahid Hussain Raja? The author bio on Amazon’s regional listings describes Raja as a retired Pakistani civil servant who served more than three decades and retired in January 2012 as Federal Secretary to the Government of Pakistan. That background helps explain the book’s shape. It looks less like a narrow university theory text and more like a broad public-facing guide to how world politics works. ### What kind of reader is it for? Not really for someone hunting the newest academic intervention. More for beginners, exam takers, and general readers who want a compact map of the field. The description leans hard on accessibility — people who have heard terms like terrorism, privatization, corruption, or agrarian reform but want discussion and explanation of complex ideas. ### Is there anything actually new here? The newest thing I could verify is not a new text edition but a newer format. Audible lists an audiobook release dated April 24, 2025, using virtual voice narration. So the renewed attention may be less about a brand-new IR collection arriving now and more about an older title continuing to circulate in new formats and on social platforms. ### Why are people sharing it now? Because IR primers travel well whenever global politics feels chaotic. Readers want one book that can move from realism and sovereignty to Syria and globalization without making them buy a semester’s worth of textbooks. That same demand also explains why posts can flatten the details — “40 essays,” “anthology,” “new collection” — into a cleaner pitch than the book record supports. ### Bottom line? This is a rediscovered explainer, not a newly published anthology. If you want a single-author, accessible IR overview, the book seems to fit that bill. But if you’re sharing it, the cleaner version is: Shahid Hussain Raja, second edition, published December 17, 2020, and listed at 45 essays.