This textbook pioneers a new approach to the study of international relations by historicizing the material traditionally taught in international relations courses and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates, and issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa, and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean, Indic, and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism, and globalization - and their consequences on contemporary society.