First-Year Reading List

Charli Carpenter asks for help compiling a reading list for her grad school seminar in IR that will leave students well-prepared to dive into a comp reading list:

Question: If you were going to assign one and only one book for each of the following weeks to a gateway doctoral seminar in IR theory for political science students who may or may not choose IR as their major field, what would that book be?

1) Realism and Neorealism
2) Liberalism and Neoliberal Institutionalism
3) Constructivism
4) Critical Theory (will incorporate feminist IR here)
5) International Security
6) International Political Economy
7) International Institutions (Law and Organizations)

My answers:

1. Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. Keohane
2. Neorealism and Neoliberalism, ed. Baldwin
3. Constructivism and Intl Relations: Alexander Wendt and his critics, ed. Guzzini and Leander
4. Haven't read it yet, but Steven Roach's newish reader looks interesting.
5. The Strategy of Conflict, by Schelling.
6. Cohen's intellectual history of IPE
7. The special issue of IO in 2001, ed. Martin and Simmons. MIT Press released it in book form.

If I were teaching the course, I'd include a week on rationalism and use Strategic Choice & IR, ed. Lake & Powell.

No major surprises here, but that isn't the point, is it? I think these provide good jumping-off points for getting into the literature and scholarly debates of the discipline, and by reading portions of books like Waltz's Theory and responses to it rather then the whole thing, students can be exposed to more voices and ideas.

UPDATE: A commenter at DoM suggests Schelling as the international security reading. Of course. My list is updated to include The Strategy of Conflict.