The Gamer's Guide to International Relations

(Hardback)

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Ready Player One meets Foreign Affairseverything your students need to know about international relations through the lens of video games!
The Gamers Guide to International Relations uses massively popular video games as a stepping stone to learning about international relations. The study of international relations concerns itself with critical topics like war, civil war, terrorism, human rights, trade, monetary policy, and the environment. Each of these areas of human need, crisis, and response can be difficult to understand. However, gamers already implicitly understand the international world through the games they play. Drawing upon lessons gamers learn through gameplay, this volume guides readers as to how their existing knowledge can help untangle some of the most complicated topics facing humanity. The book progresses by introducing readers to how scholars use the scientific method in international relations. Readers will encounter pivotal international relations theories that explain why war occurs, like realism, liberalism, and constructivism, as well as understanding concepts like the bargaining model of war. The book discusses how we learn about international politics and guides the reader through how we can research world politics and gaming. Finally, the book focuses on key interest areas like international political economy, human rights, the environment, and civil war.

Reviews

Should you cooperate with allies, or confront your adversaries From World of Warcraft and League of Legends to Minecraft and Fortnite, The Gamers Guide shows how some of the most popular games are great teachers of international relations and represent real-world political dynamics and strategy. Its sure to be an exciting read for political scientists and gamers alike! -- Oliver Kaplan, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
In The Gamer's Guide to International Relations, Michael Allen provides an incredibly comprehensive and highly accessible overview of international relations topics. Seamlessly blending insights from gaming and historical examples, this book will help readers to better understand some of the most important issues and concepts in international relations. Its incredibly informative, but also incredibly fun to read. -- Michael Flynn, Kansas State University
One of the ways that international relations instructors can help students learn about concepts and theories is to make them more tangible to students. This can be challenging as many students, especially many in the Global North, have not experienced these concepts and theories in practice. Allens The Gamers Guide to International Relations combines international relations concepts, theories, and methods with video games, including popular titles with which many students are already familiar or can play for an international relations class (such as WoW, Civ, Minecraft, and others). In doing so, this book offers an approach to teaching international relations that is tangible and engaging to students, which is when they learn best. -- Charmaine N. Willis, University at Albany, SUNY
This book offers a valuable contribution to the literature on popular culture and International Relations by showing how video games can help make sense of theories, methods, and ongoing research programs in International Relations. The Gamers Guide to International Relations thereby charts a course toward further engagement between International Relations and Game Studies. * Andrew A. Szarejko, Wartburg College *
Michael Allen's new book takes us from Starcraft to statecraft. Combining an introduction to international relations theory, a survey of video games and international relations, and a guide to conducting research on world politics, Allen offers an indispensable approach to understanding how video games can teach us about the world. * Paul Musgrave, University of Massachusetts Amherst *
Michael A. Allen's The Gamer's Guide to International Relations is a terrific option for the IR classroom. The book brings to light the important, and often complex theories, models, and controversies of the field in a way that is certain to resonate with college students. Students already play the games that Allen examines, and this book will open their eyes to a much richer tapestry for which to play and learn. * Joseph W. Roberts, Roger Williams University *

Author Bio

Michael A. Allen is a professor of political science in the School of Public Service at Boise State University. His books include Beyond the Wire: US Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion and Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction. His work focuses on conflict, asymmetry, and foreign policy with a particular interest in the positive and negative externalities of US troop deployments overseas. His research has been published in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Foreign Policy Analysis. The games he played the most while writing this book were Balatro, Helldivers 2, and Fallout 76.