The first section of this chapter describes the main features of historical
materialism and explains how international relations fitted within that
framework and the second summarizes key themes in the Marxist analysis of nationalism and imperialism. A brief overview of the orthodox
critique of Marxism within International Relations comes next and of its
rehabilitation in the 1980s when political economy and critical theory
came to the fore. The final section evaluates the Marxist tradition in the
light of recent developments in the theory of international relations.