ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the most important beginning with the long tradition of prescriptive tracts, offering observations and advice concerning the conduct of diplomacy. Authors from du Rosier to Nicolson were practitioners, who not only aimed at describing and explaining diplomacy but also had a clear prescriptive bent, offering recommendations as to the best conduct of diplomacy. War and military strategy are treated in greater detail than diplomacy in realist works. As one of the major institutions of the society of states, diplomacy has a moderating influence on state power, “taming the sovereigns”. In recent decades, Barry Buzan has made significant efforts to revive and reappraise the English School approach. Mytho-diplomacy emerged from mediation of man’s alienation from God, as chronicled in the Bible and systematised by Augustine. Metaphors are essential parts of conceptual systems and often constitute building blocks in scientific theories. Most diplomatic studies have occurred within the disciplinary borders of history and International Relations.
