I find this exciting. I selected the readings to provide you with a tool kit for examining social interactions. These tools can help you poke and prod social behavior. You may want to review an introductory IPE text such as Gilpin's The Political Economy of International Relations . I recommend reading a good history.
History provides a laboratory and data.
Age of Extremes furnish good overviews. If you plan to take a preliminary exam in international politics, I suggest you regularly scan the professional journals. Take them as a doorway to key questions and empirical and theoretical approaches in international political economy. You should be able to summarize key points and provide critiques, but, more importantly, to advance research questions and strategies related to the readings. Building and conducting a research agenda requires far more creativity and work than criticism.