Comprehensively revised for the new edition including new chapters on Polarity, Culture, Intelligence, and the Academic and Policy Worlds, it continues to give students a detailed overview of the major theoretical approaches, key themes and most significant issues within security studies.

Part 1 explores the main theoretical approaches currently used within the field from realism to international political sociology.
Part 2 explains the central concepts underpinning contemporary debates from the security dilemma to terrorism.
Part 3 presents an overview of the institutional security architecture currently influencing world politics using international, regional and global levels of analysis.
Part 4 examines some of the key contemporary challenges to global security from the arms trade to energy security.
Part 5 discusses the future of security.