Jarvis provides a collection of essays designed to survey the issues, debates, themes, and points of contention surrounding postmodernist and poststructuralist thought in international relations and the Third Debate. It serves as an introduction to these new theoretical mediums, and as a critique to highlight weaknesses, problems, or concerns that arise in the context of perspectivism, interpretivism, postfoundationalism, relativism, ethics, and knowledge. In the fullest sense, the essays are concerned with assessing what postmodern and poststructural theories can contribute to international relations and the study of world politics.

The approach of Jarvis and his contributors is exploratory as well as pedagogical. They anticipate that explorations into the conundrum of understanding and explaining world politics will help students and other researchers beginning their own such investigations to form some tentative questions and, perhaps, even answers of their own. Provocative reading for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with political science theory and international relations.