Global Distribution

POLITICAL THEORY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, by Charles R. Beitz. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 212 pp. Cloth, $16.50; paper, $3.95.

There are today, in the poor countries of the world, roughly 900 million people who live in absolute poverty—”a condition of life [to quote Robert McNamara] so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be below any rational definition of human decency.” The continuing existence of mass absolute poverty makes discussion of the moral aspects of international relations (and particularly of North-South relations) a matter of extreme importance.

Charles Beitz believes that “political theorists have paid insufficie...