Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the book. The aim of the book is to examine the meaning, nature and value of Barry Buzan’s big picture as an approach to IR, and to use this as a stepping stone to a broader reflection on the benefit of big picture approaches or macro-perspectives. To that end, the chapter initially analyses the chronological development of Buzan’s big picture thinking, with a particular emphasis on three core monographs. That allows the authors to identify a number of ‘traits’ in Buzan’s evolving thinking. The rest of the chapter is concerned with comparing and contrasting Buzan’s approach to other macro-perspectives in International Relations and related disciplines, and to provide an overview of the remaining chapters and emerging issues. The chapter ends with some initial conclusions regarding the implications for the International Relations discipline.