What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature. By Annette Freyberg-Inan. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 266p. $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Human nature is the subject of Annette Freyberg-Inan's sustained attack on political realism. She argues that all realist theory shares a common set of assumptions about human motivations. In short, realists believe that humans are, and always will be, up to little good. We are fearful, self-interested, power-hungry, and “by and large, rational” (p. 94). Realists apply these psychological characteristics to nation-states, modifying them only to the extent that states and their leaders are likely to be more rational—in the sense of being strategic and utility maximizing—than average people. Such understandings of human nature are, however, simplistic and misleading.