The International Relations of Middle Earth

[Tuor in Gondolin]

I just watched a C-SPAN 2 book talk by Patrick James about his and Abigail
Ruane's book, which utilizes aspects of Middle Earth politics and peoples
to illuminate facets of international relations. Here are some brief reviews
:

Based on their successful undergraduate course at the University of Southern California, Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James provide an introduction to International Relations using J. R. R. Tolkien's fantastically popular trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Because Tolkien's major themes—such as good versus evil and human agency versus determinism—are perennially relevant to International Relations, The Lord of the Rings is well suited for application to the study of politics in our own world. This innovative combination of social science and humanities approaches to illustrate key concepts engages students and stimulates critical thinking in new and exciting ways.

"What a nice way to initiate students into international relations theory! Young people often know imagined worlds with multiple polities better than they know their own history. Middle-earth offers a hefty dose of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Russian lore into the bargain. Here in Rohan, we are immensely pleased."
—Iver B. Neumann, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, coeditor of Harry Potter and International Relations

"The great 'trick' of this book is that it is more than a catchy hook and a way to explain IR theory that would be accessible to students. It also adds something to the theoretical interpretation of IR. The authors aren't just using LOTR to tell us about IR as it exists—they use it to critique its boundaries and then to suggest to students an accessible but theoretically more sophisticated way to look at IR theory."
—Laura Sjoberg, University of Florida

"This book is a welcome addition to the growing list of texts that make great works of fantasy and science fiction available to IR scholars. Ruane and James do a nice job bringing out the complexity of Tolkien's masterwork, showing both how one might use Tolkien to illustrate IR concepts, and how one might go about extracting Tolkien's own theories about politics from the story. You will want this book as your companion on any quest to draw insights about our world from Tolkien's tale of the end of Middle-earth's Third Age."
—Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, American University

One bit he touched on, not mentioned above, was feminist philosophy in LoTR. I hadn't realized there were several variants of feminism. Ruane devotes a chapter to it. James cited several varieties, Eowyn epitomizing "liberal" feminism---women aspiring to equality in vocations (Eowyn aspiring to be a warrior on a par with her brother), and the ent wives a different brand (forgrt if he classified it) which has more interest as women having different, but equally valid, roles as men. Interesting. Now I'll have to get the book.

Btw, he seems to have a fairly sound knowledge of Middle-earth (texts) but does cite and consider PJ's works a bit too much.

Oh, and Galadriel. Well, he classifies her as the single most potent of the free peoples (I guess arguably true if you exclude a few wizards).

And presumably Arwen is more your American fundamentalist type of woman. A wee bit traditional.