This textbook investigates the tortuous relationship between established status quo powers and revolutionary states, such as China, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua and Iraq. It bridges the gap between analyses of revolutions, which tend to concentrate on their domestic causes, and the study of renegade states' impact on the international system. It sees revolutionary states as a central dynamic of modern international society, rather than as aberrations damaging an otherwise stable international body politic. The book provides a series of historical and contemporary case studies and theoretical analyses.