From the Author of International Relations in a Constructed World
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The extraordinary story of a Czech exile whose moral courage, first in defying the KGB, then in refusing to conform to a discipline that wasn't ready for her ideas, transformed International Relations over 50 years.
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Live Zoom Q&A with Dr. Kubálková — Exclusively for Book Buyers
Join Dr. Kubálková for a private, live Zoom session where she'll take your questions about the book, her extraordinary life, the future of Global IR, and anything else on your mind. This is your chance to have a direct conversation with one of the discipline's most storied scholars — a woman who defied the KGB, was exiled for 25 years, and helped reshape International Relations from the margins to the mainstream. Limited to book buyers only. Date and details will be sent after purchase.
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Sneak Preview: International Relations Plus (IR+) Video Series
Get exclusive early access to select preview videos from Dr. Kubálková’s groundbreaking IR+ series over 130 animated videos that bring International Relations to life through visual storytelling. This preview includes sample videos across multiple categories so you can experience the future of IR education firsthand. The full series retails from $127–$197.
A $19 Value, Yours Free As a Thank You for Your Purchase
Private Academic Article: A Letter from the IR Pandemic Zoomroom
Dr. Kubálková's widely-read academic article (viewed over 24,000 times) on the crisis and opportunity facing International Relations education in the Digital Age. Written during the pandemic, it's a passionate call-to-arms for reimagining how we teach and learn about the world, and the intellectual seed that grew into this book. Delivered as a downloadable PDF.
Witness the Rallying Cry for a Shift in Global IR Learning
Curated Collection: Dr. Kubálková's Key Talks & Discussions
These hand-selected videos feature various scholars including Dr. Kubálková sharing their expertise and insights on pressing global crises and the need for more inclusive, non-Western-centric approaches to IR theory.
Over 4 Hours of Additional Content
Virtual Office Hours with Professor Amitav Acharya
These hand-selected videos feature various scholars including Dr. Kubálková sharing their expertise and insights on pressing global crises and the need for more inclusive, non-Western-centric approaches to IR theory.
Over 4 Hours of Additional Content
About the Book
Not Another Textbook. Not a Memoir. Something Entirely New.
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At its heart, this is a book about moral courage: what it costs, what it builds, and what happens to a discipline when one person refuses to stop thinking new thoughts.
What happens when a 24-year-old Czech law graduate is blackmailed by the KGB into becoming a spy...and says no?
In 1969, days before departing Prague for a British scholarship, Vendulka Kubálková was given an ultimatum: accept a full espionage assignment for the KGB/STB, or face the consequences. She boarded the plane. And upon arriving in England, she gave herself up to British authorities.
What followed was decades of exile - stateless, undocumented, sentenced to prison in absentia back home. Her mother died before she could return. She wouldn't see Prague again for over 25 years, and only then on an Australian passport, as a tourist.
"There's not a dull bone in her body, and there's not a dull word in her wonderful new work. As a tour of the last half century of the international relations discipline, it has no equal."
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— Ralph Pettman, former professor at Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, the LSE, and Science Po
Yet from that shattered starting point, she built one of the most distinctive careers in International Relations, holding positions at universities across England, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, working alongside legends like Hedley Bull, Kenneth Waltz, and Immanuel Wallerstein.
My Path to Global International Relations uses this extraordinary life story as the backbone of something genuinely new: a semi-autobiographical textbook that teaches International Relations through lived experience. It's the discipline's last 50 years as seen through the eyes of someone who didn't just study world affairs, but was caught in the thick of them.
What You'll Discover Inside
- What moral courage looks like in practice, from refusing KGB recruitment at the cost of permanent exile, to pioneering IR theories (Marxism, International Political Theology, constructivism) that the establishment wouldn't touch, to reimagining education itself for the digital age
- How Cold War espionage networks actually operated - from the inside, not from a spy novel
- The real story behind the fall of the Soviet bloc, through the eyes of someone who lived on both sides of the Iron Curtain
- Why the IR discipline has been dominated by Anglo-American perspectives and how Global IR is changing that
- The key IR theories (realism, constructivism, Marxism, postcolonialism) explained through personal encounters with the scholars who created them
- What "ontological security" and "epistemological security" mean and why they matter for understanding both individuals and nations
- A passionate argument for reimagining education in the Information Age, backed by cognitive science
- Newly uncovered archival evidence from Czech KGB files confirming the author's story (included in the Appendix)
Who Will Benefit
This Book Is For You If…
- You're an IR student who wants to understand the discipline's history, debates, and key thinkers through a narrative that actually holds your attention
- You're an educator looking for a fresh approach to teaching IR, one that connects theory to lived experience and embraces the Information Age
- You're fascinated by Cold War history and want a firsthand account of what it was like behind the Iron Curtain and what it cost to escape
- You're a general reader who cares about understanding today's world and wants the big picture from someone who has lived across it
- You believe the study of world affairs shouldn't be confined to one country's perspective and want to see what a truly Global IR looks like
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Purchase Today to Receive Your
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What People Are Saying
Praise for Dr. Kubálková and Her Work
"As a tour of the last half century of the international relations discipline, it has no equal. As a tour of the author herself, it speaks of an entire life, both intellectual and personal, rendered on the page in prose that defies imitation."
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Former professor at Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, LSE, Science Po, and Tokyo
"A masterpiece by a luminary in the discipline… It is not just another textbook. Rather, it is an embodiment of a marvelous idea, a truly out-of-the-box thinking, which combines and intertwines the highlights from the everyday life of an individual and academic with the systemic forces of world affairs."
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Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies, Florida Atlantic University; Secretary of ISA Global IR Section
About the Author
Dr. Vendulka Kubálková
Professor Kubálková received her JUDr (doctorate in International Law) from Charles University, Czechoslovakia, and her Ph.D. in International Politics from Lancaster University, England. She is also a graduate of the Prague Conservatoire as a concert pianist.
She is Professor of International Studies at the University of Miami, Florida, and has held appointments across England, New Zealand, Australia, Germany (Olin Fellowship, Munich), and as Senior Fulbright Professor at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and UC Berkeley.
She co-founded the Miami Theory Group with Nicholas Onuf, co-edited the 8-volume M.E. Sharpe series International Relations in a Constructed World, and is a founding member and co-chair of the Global International Relations Section (GIRS) of the International Studies Association.
She was awarded the Czech Republic's Distinguished Medal for Expertise in International Relations, the Jan Masaryk Medal "Pro Amicitia Inter Naciones."
