Abstract/Summary

The concepts of ‘borders’ and ‘boundaries’ are in some sense inherently central to International Relations (IR), but historical IR is an area of the discipline where comparatively little work has been done which takes as its primary goal the analysis of ‘borders’ or ‘boundaries’. In this chapter we give an overview of IR scholarship which intersects with the history of borders, dividing it into two categories: first, historical IR which engages with borders and boundaries, and second, a broader range of IR work on borders and boundaries which either has a historical component or could benefit from having one. In a final section, we put forward some suggestions for future research, highlighting in particular some ways of dealing with Eurocentrism in historical IR’s coverage of the topic.