John Hobson makes the case that disciplinary history has been essential in uncovering the Eurocentric biases of international relations (IR) and, more recently, of international political economy (IPE). The revisionism that animates much recent research, he argues, makes it increasingly untenable to maintain traditional conceptions about the object of IR (a de-historicized, neutral state system, and an empty and formally egalitarian notion of sovereignty), the main concepts buttressing the theories of IR, or indeed the history that matters in explaining the world that IR is concerned with. The result, Hobson suggests, is a fundamental challenge to the identity of the discipline and therefore to its pedagogical apparatus.