This article uses a long view of history to examine structural realist ideas about international system. It has three themes: (1) that insufficient thought has been given to defining the necessary and suffi cient conditions for saying that an international system exists; (2) that such conceptions of international system as we do have are overwhelm ingly biased by the structural characteristics of the European experience; and (3) that international relations theory and history need each other. History provides a wealth of significant challenges to prevailing ortho doxies in international relations theory, and structural realist theory can be used as an interesting approach to formulating grand history.
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