Deploying an original 'Social Evolution Paradigm' (SEP) and drawing from anthropology, evolutionary biology, and international relations, this book advances a sweeping account of the systemic transformation of international politics. More specifically, the book shows how the nasty and brutish Hobbesian/offensive realism world many of us take for granted had evolved from an Eden-like paradise; how the Hobbesian world had self-transformed into a more peaceful defensive realist world from 1648 to 1945; and how some regions of the post-1945 world have become more rule-based and peaceful. The book critically engages with all the key grand theories of international politics and provides interesting solutions to some of the 'great debates' between those theories, from offensive realism to defensive realism, neoliberalism, the English School, and constructivism. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of international politics and of interest to those working in anthropology, sociology, political science, and social sciences in general.

唐世平，长江学者，复旦大学国际政治学系教授，博士生导师。他获得学位包括：古生物学学士（1985）、分子生物学硕士（1988）、分子生物与遗传学博士（1995），而之后才获得了国际关系硕士学位（1999）。他的研究领域广泛，涵盖国际政治理论、制度经济学、政治理论、社会科学哲学。他在这些领域都做出了世界水平的研究，并且有广泛的著述。2015年，唐世平凭《国际政治的社会演化》一书获国际研究协会（ISA）的“年度最佳著作”奖，成为首位获得该奖项的亚洲学者和中国学者。鉴于他的多元训练，唐世平的社会演化范式或将把中国国际关系理论的学生带入一个崭新且充满机遇的知识前沿。