Matrixrose ji, I have read 2 of the four books you reccomended- The End of the American Era and The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Actually the End of the American Era was sent to me by a Sajha friend (if you are reading this, thank you very much, once again.) Its a well written, well argued book, but wouldn't be of interest to a general reader. I also found one flaw (my view) in his argument: He sees the American dominance going down because of the alliances in the "unipolar world", but given the nature of American involvement in those alliances (EU, ASEAN, ARF) I think the Americans will keep on staying at the top. If scholars can predict the downfall of America, then the brilliant state department people can come up with the polices to keep American power alive. Similar arguments were made in the aftermath of Vietnam, but what happened? American power did not decline. Also this book came out when America was "unilaterally" preparing for an attack on Iraq, and Kupchan was against this "unilateral" approach. He was interviewd by the BBC (Hardtalk) when America had sent its troops, its a good interview, watch it if you have access to BBC files. John Mershiemer is a neo realist, and I like him for that. His argument is: The structure of the international system is anarchic and there's this constant struggle for power among the players. His theory of offensive realism, thus is: don't wait.. just go and (if you ahve the power and ability) become a hegemon, because if you don't, then somebody else will. The book will not be of any interest whatsoever to general readers, so don't spend your hard earned money on it unless you want to bore yourslef to death understanding the anarchic nature of international system. This is for IR students with a realist/neo-realist tilt. The first half is the explanation of his theory.. and I thought he spent a lot of pages doing that. But well, his theory, his book.. I liked the book though. The best short, to-the-point Mershimer piece, I have read so far is, "Why we will soon miss the Cold War". This artilce written 2-3 years after the cold war, and when all those theories of democratic peace and "golden arch" were dominating the media/intelectuals, he comes and says, look all of you are mistaken. Unipolar world is not going to solve the world's problems, actually it will complicate those. Well, he was proven right by the events that followed. arko duita ta padheko chaina...