Bringing Religion into International Relations. By Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 224p. $55.00.

With this book, Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler offer the most comprehensive meditation to date on the question of religion as a factor in international relations. Stating as their central purpose a desire to “expand the boundaries of international relations theory by the inclusion of religion as a variable in the research of international politics” (p. 4), the authors provide a superbly structured overview of a topic that has been crying out for sustained engagement for some time now. While the questions asked (and many of the answers eventually posited) are by no means wholly original, Bringing Religion Into International Relations finally offers IR a systematic baseline of inquiry that subsequent scholarship on religion and international affairs can build upon or challenge.