Book excerpt: Martin Wight was one of the most profound and influential thinkers on international relations of his time; and his work is increasingly discussed, appraised, and drawn upon today.His earlier volume of posthumously-published lectures - International Theory: The Three Traditions - is now regarded as a seminal text. That volume is here complemented and completed. In these four lectures Wight takes the archetypal thinkers of the three traditions - Machiavelli, Grotius, and Kant - to whom he adds Mazzini, the father of all revolutionary nationalism (and so the prototype of such as Nehru, Nasser, and Mandela) and subjects their writings and careers to a masterlyanalysis and commentary.This volume has been prepared and edited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter, and contains an important new introduction to Wight's thought by Professor David S. Yost. The volume also contains a preface by Sir Michael Howard, CH.