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Paul Poast, Thinking Carefully and Formally about The First World War, International Studies Review, Volume 22, Issue 2, June 2020, Pages 318–320, https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa004
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Although international relations (IR) scholars may not be “fighting the last war,” we seem pretty stuck on World War I. Perhaps there is good reason. World War I fundamentally transformed European and global societies; it was the driving force behind the modern study of international affairs; and despite being a century removed from the war, many questions regarding its onset, course, and aftermath remain. If, however, the field decides to move on from World War I, that decision will be greatly abetted by Scott Wolford's The Politics of the First World War. At its core, this book is a text aimed at instructing students of international relations (from undergraduates to tenured professors) on the use and utility of game theoretic modeling. Rather than aim to write “yet another introduction to game theory” complete with various illustrative applications, however, Wolford takes the novel approach of concentrating the book on a single application: the causes and course of the First World War.
