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THE TWENTY YEARS' CRISIS, 1919-1939 an Introduction to the Study of International Relations
E. H. Carr's classic work on international relations published in 1939 was immediately recognized by friend and foe alike as a defining work. The author was one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals of the 20th century. The issues and themes he developed continue to have relevance to modern day concerns with power and its distribution in the international system. Michael Cox's critical introduction provides the reader with background information about the author, the context for the book, and its main themes and contemporary relevance.
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First published September 1, 1939
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About the author
Edward Hallett Carr
157 books232 followersEdward Hallett Carr was a liberal realist and later left-wing British historian, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography.
Carr was best known for his 14-volume history of the Soviet Union, in which he provided an account of Soviet history from 1917 to 1929, for his writings on international relations, and for his book What Is History?, in which he laid out historiographical principles rejecting traditional historical methods and practices.
Educated at Cambridge, Carr began his career as a diplomat in 1916. Becoming increasingly preoccupied with the study of international relations and of the Soviet Union, he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1936 to begin an academic career. From 1941 to 1946, Carr worked as an assistant editor at The Times, where he was noted for his leaders (editorials) urging a socialist system and an Anglo-Soviet alliance as the basis of a post-war order. Afterwards, Carr worked on a massive 14-volume work on Soviet history entitled A History of Soviet Russia, a project that he was still engaged in at the time of his death in 1982. In 1961, he delivered the G. M. Trevelyan lectures at the University of Cambridge that became the basis of his book, What is History?. Moving increasingly towards the left throughout his career, Carr saw his role as the theorist who would work out the basis of a new international order.
Carr was best known for his 14-volume history of the Soviet Union, in which he provided an account of Soviet history from 1917 to 1929, for his writings on international relations, and for his book What Is History?, in which he laid out historiographical principles rejecting traditional historical methods and practices.
Educated at Cambridge, Carr began his career as a diplomat in 1916. Becoming increasingly preoccupied with the study of international relations and of the Soviet Union, he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1936 to begin an academic career. From 1941 to 1946, Carr worked as an assistant editor at The Times, where he was noted for his leaders (editorials) urging a socialist system and an Anglo-Soviet alliance as the basis of a post-war order. Afterwards, Carr worked on a massive 14-volume work on Soviet history entitled A History of Soviet Russia, a project that he was still engaged in at the time of his death in 1982. In 1961, he delivered the G. M. Trevelyan lectures at the University of Cambridge that became the basis of his book, What is History?. Moving increasingly towards the left throughout his career, Carr saw his role as the theorist who would work out the basis of a new international order.
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March 6, 2015
E.H. Carr’s classic book remains essential reading for any student of International Relations (IR). Carr’s greatness is rooted in:
*the strength of his dialectical method
*his recognition of the vital nature of theoretical pluralism
*the groundwork he laid for critical approaches to International Relations
*and the case he made for the special nature of international politics as compared to domestic politics.
In many ways, the great debates in IR have been a working out of Carr’s arguments and oppositions, (though unfortunately within and among much more entrenched, demarcated lines). The fact that most of these debates have resolved little validates Carr’s own methodology of pluralism and mediation.
His use of realism as a critique of IR’s idealistic and legalistic beginnings, as well as his use of idealism to treat the hollowness of the realist focus on power, has provided a much needed model for those seeking to tame the excesses of theoretical orthodoxy. Carr’s ability to expose the hidden dynamics of power that underpin such concepts as the harmony of interests and collective security has provided some of the practical groundwork for critical approaches that have sought to expose similar hidden relations of power and knowledge. When all of these specific contributions are taken together they add up to a foundation for a discipline of IR that is beyond the parochial departmental politics of “choosing sides.”
The last seventy years of theoretical debate have validated Carr’s employment of a mediation of dialectical oppositions. In many ways, the three debates have been a working out of the key concepts in Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis. Carr writes:
“The complete realist, unconditionally accepting the causal sequence of events, deprives himself of the possibility of changing reality. The complete utopian, by rejecting the causal sequence, deprives himself of the possibility of understanding either the reality which he is seeking to change or the process by which it can be changed. The characteristic vice of the utopian is naivety; of the realist, sterility” (p. 11-12).”
In his focus on causal sequences, we can see the beginnings of the neorealist arguments for structural determinism; in Carr’s admonishment of realist “sterility,” we can also see English School and critical theorist arguments for the moral and political impotency of neorealism and other “problem-solving” theory.
In his writing, Carr at once argues for a discipline attentive to causal factors, cognizant of the hidden power structures of mainstream thinking, and sensitive to the depoliticization of utopian thinking. Carr would even anticipate Hedley Bull’s moral inquiry into the international system as a society of states. Carr asks, “In what sense can we find a basis for international morality by positing a society of states?” (p. 161).
Despite the very obvious influences Carr has had on later works, the parochialism and oftentimes downright meanness of some of the debates in IR stands as evidence that the discipline has failed to capitalize on Carr’s examples to create a truly rigorous interdisciplinary pluralism. His dialectical process shuns a short-sighted, cynical disciplinary politics that asks simply: choose a side.
Nor does Carr’s approach simply lapse into uncritical pluralism. Carr’s use of theory and critical approaches to entrenched political theories is grounded in a respect for the necessities of modern politics and the usefulness oppositions can have for exposing the weaknesses idealized positions. The importance of realist analysis is based on its ability to unmask the purported universalism of idealism: to expose “the hollowness [politically and often ideologically] of the utopian edifice” (p. 89) and to prevent the catastrophic errors of judgment that occur when politicians swallow their own moral rhetoric wholeheartedly. Conversely, the vital importance of idealism is based in its ability to overcome the emptiness of brute power politics.
This theoretical pluralism is conditioned and justified by its contribution to international politics, the creation of more thoughtful political leaders/thinkers, and a more sophisticated public debate. The goals that Carr posits as the necessary contribution of idealism: “a finite goal, an emotional appeal, a right of moral judgment and a ground for action” (p. 89) are all tied to the persuasive elements of moral rhetoric. Though Carr saw one of the vital functions of idealism as the debunking of the realist concept of ‘might makes right,’ he realized that this debunking has to take place within the political fray, in the realm of politics, not the abstract realm of human reason.
In terms of the use of realism, Carr justified its employment as a cautionary force to idealism based on its ability to prevent future political follies on the scale of those enacted during the interwar period. Realism’s promise is formulated as its ability to make political idealists aware of the fact that they are susceptible to the blind, irrational collisions of diverse interests and asymmetric powers (p. 224). Thus theoretical pluralism is never justified as a good in and of itself, but rather as means to a better practice of international politics.
In addition to Carr’s contributions to theoretical pluralism and his focus on the needs of international politicians, Carr also set important groundwork for critical IR theory. In differentiating problem-solving theory from critical theory, Cox (1986) states that, whereas problem-solving theory is essentially conservative and seeks to smooth out the functioning of the system as it currently stands, critical theory attempts to show hidden injustices within current systems of governance and mainstream discourse, and to posit viable alternatives (p. 207-210). In the Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr employs both idealism and realism as critical theories as defined by Cox.
Though Carr identifies idealism as having the ability to create alternative political orders, realism is the key tool he uses to debunk such entrenched concepts as laissez-faire, collective security, and the harmony of interests strain of thought that runs through both of these concepts. Instead of a true harmony of interests, Carr shows how the interests of the world community are selfishly identified as being the same as “that part of it in which we are particularly interested” (p. 167).
Finally, Carr helped create a disciplinary space for IR. In his discussion of the difference between international and domestic morality, Carr frequently points to the lack of an international government as a conditioning factor for the difference between international and state politics. In his discussion of the differences between international and domestic morality, Carr writes: “One reason why a higher standard of morality is not expected of states is because states in fact frequently fail to behave morally and because there are no means of compelling them to do so” (p. 161). Carr sets much of the framework for IR as a discipline by showing how the state of anarchy influences all aspects of world politics. In terms of morality, anarchy helps undermine the formation of an international morality that would overtake national interests. Thus, “the role of power is greater and that of morality less [than domestic politics]” (p. 168). In terms of international law, anarchy creates a legal system based on custom more so than legislative authority (p. 171). These key distinctions regarding the conditioning power of anarchy on international politics, as opposed to domestic politics, would be foundational in justifying the study of IR as a separate discipline of politics.
Will E.H. Carr’s seminal work continue to be required reading? If it has stood as one of the foundational works for over seventy years, then surely it will continue to be a must-read ten, fifty, even a hundred years from now.
*the strength of his dialectical method
*his recognition of the vital nature of theoretical pluralism
*the groundwork he laid for critical approaches to International Relations
*and the case he made for the special nature of international politics as compared to domestic politics.
In many ways, the great debates in IR have been a working out of Carr’s arguments and oppositions, (though unfortunately within and among much more entrenched, demarcated lines). The fact that most of these debates have resolved little validates Carr’s own methodology of pluralism and mediation.
His use of realism as a critique of IR’s idealistic and legalistic beginnings, as well as his use of idealism to treat the hollowness of the realist focus on power, has provided a much needed model for those seeking to tame the excesses of theoretical orthodoxy. Carr’s ability to expose the hidden dynamics of power that underpin such concepts as the harmony of interests and collective security has provided some of the practical groundwork for critical approaches that have sought to expose similar hidden relations of power and knowledge. When all of these specific contributions are taken together they add up to a foundation for a discipline of IR that is beyond the parochial departmental politics of “choosing sides.”
The last seventy years of theoretical debate have validated Carr’s employment of a mediation of dialectical oppositions. In many ways, the three debates have been a working out of the key concepts in Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis. Carr writes:
“The complete realist, unconditionally accepting the causal sequence of events, deprives himself of the possibility of changing reality. The complete utopian, by rejecting the causal sequence, deprives himself of the possibility of understanding either the reality which he is seeking to change or the process by which it can be changed. The characteristic vice of the utopian is naivety; of the realist, sterility” (p. 11-12).”
In his focus on causal sequences, we can see the beginnings of the neorealist arguments for structural determinism; in Carr’s admonishment of realist “sterility,” we can also see English School and critical theorist arguments for the moral and political impotency of neorealism and other “problem-solving” theory.
In his writing, Carr at once argues for a discipline attentive to causal factors, cognizant of the hidden power structures of mainstream thinking, and sensitive to the depoliticization of utopian thinking. Carr would even anticipate Hedley Bull’s moral inquiry into the international system as a society of states. Carr asks, “In what sense can we find a basis for international morality by positing a society of states?” (p. 161).
Despite the very obvious influences Carr has had on later works, the parochialism and oftentimes downright meanness of some of the debates in IR stands as evidence that the discipline has failed to capitalize on Carr’s examples to create a truly rigorous interdisciplinary pluralism. His dialectical process shuns a short-sighted, cynical disciplinary politics that asks simply: choose a side.
Nor does Carr’s approach simply lapse into uncritical pluralism. Carr’s use of theory and critical approaches to entrenched political theories is grounded in a respect for the necessities of modern politics and the usefulness oppositions can have for exposing the weaknesses idealized positions. The importance of realist analysis is based on its ability to unmask the purported universalism of idealism: to expose “the hollowness [politically and often ideologically] of the utopian edifice” (p. 89) and to prevent the catastrophic errors of judgment that occur when politicians swallow their own moral rhetoric wholeheartedly. Conversely, the vital importance of idealism is based in its ability to overcome the emptiness of brute power politics.
This theoretical pluralism is conditioned and justified by its contribution to international politics, the creation of more thoughtful political leaders/thinkers, and a more sophisticated public debate. The goals that Carr posits as the necessary contribution of idealism: “a finite goal, an emotional appeal, a right of moral judgment and a ground for action” (p. 89) are all tied to the persuasive elements of moral rhetoric. Though Carr saw one of the vital functions of idealism as the debunking of the realist concept of ‘might makes right,’ he realized that this debunking has to take place within the political fray, in the realm of politics, not the abstract realm of human reason.
In terms of the use of realism, Carr justified its employment as a cautionary force to idealism based on its ability to prevent future political follies on the scale of those enacted during the interwar period. Realism’s promise is formulated as its ability to make political idealists aware of the fact that they are susceptible to the blind, irrational collisions of diverse interests and asymmetric powers (p. 224). Thus theoretical pluralism is never justified as a good in and of itself, but rather as means to a better practice of international politics.
In addition to Carr’s contributions to theoretical pluralism and his focus on the needs of international politicians, Carr also set important groundwork for critical IR theory. In differentiating problem-solving theory from critical theory, Cox (1986) states that, whereas problem-solving theory is essentially conservative and seeks to smooth out the functioning of the system as it currently stands, critical theory attempts to show hidden injustices within current systems of governance and mainstream discourse, and to posit viable alternatives (p. 207-210). In the Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr employs both idealism and realism as critical theories as defined by Cox.
Though Carr identifies idealism as having the ability to create alternative political orders, realism is the key tool he uses to debunk such entrenched concepts as laissez-faire, collective security, and the harmony of interests strain of thought that runs through both of these concepts. Instead of a true harmony of interests, Carr shows how the interests of the world community are selfishly identified as being the same as “that part of it in which we are particularly interested” (p. 167).
Finally, Carr helped create a disciplinary space for IR. In his discussion of the difference between international and domestic morality, Carr frequently points to the lack of an international government as a conditioning factor for the difference between international and state politics. In his discussion of the differences between international and domestic morality, Carr writes: “One reason why a higher standard of morality is not expected of states is because states in fact frequently fail to behave morally and because there are no means of compelling them to do so” (p. 161). Carr sets much of the framework for IR as a discipline by showing how the state of anarchy influences all aspects of world politics. In terms of morality, anarchy helps undermine the formation of an international morality that would overtake national interests. Thus, “the role of power is greater and that of morality less [than domestic politics]” (p. 168). In terms of international law, anarchy creates a legal system based on custom more so than legislative authority (p. 171). These key distinctions regarding the conditioning power of anarchy on international politics, as opposed to domestic politics, would be foundational in justifying the study of IR as a separate discipline of politics.
Will E.H. Carr’s seminal work continue to be required reading? If it has stood as one of the foundational works for over seventy years, then surely it will continue to be a must-read ten, fifty, even a hundred years from now.
April 20, 2025
I was primed to give this book five stars, but I just couldn’t. E.H. Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis is a landmark text in international relations, released on the eve of World War II. It laid the foundation for realist thinking in the field and provided a compelling critique of the idealism that defined the interwar period. That said, I gave it four stars not because I am a liberal and disagree with certain aspects of realism, which I am and do, but because I found the title misleading. The book is far more about the theoretical underpinnings of international relations than a systematic analysis of the twenty years between the wars. The subtitle should really be the title.
The book lays out the realist principles of international relations as a science grounded in the primacy of power, of which there are three kinds: economic, military, and control of opinion. A harmony of opinion about international relations between states can be a goal but does not naturally exist: states will prioritize their own well-being over the well-being of the whole. Conflict is natural because some nations wish to keep the status quo, others to change it, and then it just a question of means. History, Carr argues, is a series of causes and effects, practice creates theory, and morality is the product of power.
On the other hand, the author admits that realism alone is insufficient. "Pure realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society impossible." Realism must be balanced with idealism to make the best policy. Effective political thought, he contends, requires an uneasy balance between realism and idealism. Idealism provides four crucial elements: a finite goal, an emotional appeal, a right of moral judgment, and a ground for action. While force may trump moral claims in the short term, legitimacy cannot be sustained by force alone.. Thus, an "uneasy compromise between power and utopianism...is the foundation of all political life."
Those are powerful insights—and I agree with much of it. However, I’m less convinced by the postmodern strain in Carr’s analysis. He seems to suggest that political ideals (whether democracy, communism, or feudalism) are merely the vehicles of self-interest and, over time, will inevitably be displaced by new ones. According to this logic, all ideals are morally equivalent—Nazism as valid, in principle, as communism. That’s a line I can’t follow. Some ideals are empirically better than others—measured by human freedom and well-being. For a counterpoint, I’d recommend Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.
As for his analysis of the twenty years’ crisis, you could read Margaret MacMillan’s “Paris 1919” to find the causes of the troubles presented in a much more structured and comprehensible way, though it builds on many of Carr’s ideas. His critique of the interwar order is sharp: the small states carved out of Eastern Europe by Wilson’s Fourteen Points were inherently unstable, and the League of Nations, though visionary, was far too idealistic. Many in the English-speaking world genuinely believed the League had eliminated power from global politics and replaced armies with dialogue. Carr exposes this as naïve. The gap between states’ rhetoric and their actual behavior, he argues, was vast. Defensive alliances were dressed up as “collective security,” and disarmament was proposed as a solution to conflicts rather actually addressing the conflicts.
Carr maintains that the Versailles order broke down not because of individual wickedness (Hitler) but structural weakness. There is truth in this, but that is a step too simplistic. In 1920, many in Britain and Germany agreed upon what were the just and unjust parts of the Treaty of Versailles. But Germany lacked the power to change anything—until, years later, it embraced a deeply cynical view of power and forced its way out of the system. Rather than win British support, this aggressive stance alienated a potential ally. Thus, the period of 1919 to 1939 can be described like this, "The abrupt descent from the visionary hopes of the first decade to the grim despair of the second, from a utopia which took little account of reality to a reality from which every element of utopia was excluded." That is all true, but Carr does not take into account that Britain made a very serious attempt to appease Hitler in the late 1930s and it just did not work. Hitler was unappeasable.
As "a reaction against the wish-dreams" of the makers of the Versailles peace, this is a fine book. Their wonderfully liberal ideas contemplated a world consensus that did not exist, and did not take into account sufficiently the idea of power in politics. However, the book is organized and meant to prevent future statesmen from making similar mistakes, so it is better as a sort of textbook of principles of international relations rather than a systematic exposition of the history of the twenty years from 1919 to 1939. For that, when I was in university, I read “The Great Powers and the Breakdown of the European States System,” 1914 – 1939 by Graham Ross.
The book lays out the realist principles of international relations as a science grounded in the primacy of power, of which there are three kinds: economic, military, and control of opinion. A harmony of opinion about international relations between states can be a goal but does not naturally exist: states will prioritize their own well-being over the well-being of the whole. Conflict is natural because some nations wish to keep the status quo, others to change it, and then it just a question of means. History, Carr argues, is a series of causes and effects, practice creates theory, and morality is the product of power.
On the other hand, the author admits that realism alone is insufficient. "Pure realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society impossible." Realism must be balanced with idealism to make the best policy. Effective political thought, he contends, requires an uneasy balance between realism and idealism. Idealism provides four crucial elements: a finite goal, an emotional appeal, a right of moral judgment, and a ground for action. While force may trump moral claims in the short term, legitimacy cannot be sustained by force alone.. Thus, an "uneasy compromise between power and utopianism...is the foundation of all political life."
Those are powerful insights—and I agree with much of it. However, I’m less convinced by the postmodern strain in Carr’s analysis. He seems to suggest that political ideals (whether democracy, communism, or feudalism) are merely the vehicles of self-interest and, over time, will inevitably be displaced by new ones. According to this logic, all ideals are morally equivalent—Nazism as valid, in principle, as communism. That’s a line I can’t follow. Some ideals are empirically better than others—measured by human freedom and well-being. For a counterpoint, I’d recommend Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.
As for his analysis of the twenty years’ crisis, you could read Margaret MacMillan’s “Paris 1919” to find the causes of the troubles presented in a much more structured and comprehensible way, though it builds on many of Carr’s ideas. His critique of the interwar order is sharp: the small states carved out of Eastern Europe by Wilson’s Fourteen Points were inherently unstable, and the League of Nations, though visionary, was far too idealistic. Many in the English-speaking world genuinely believed the League had eliminated power from global politics and replaced armies with dialogue. Carr exposes this as naïve. The gap between states’ rhetoric and their actual behavior, he argues, was vast. Defensive alliances were dressed up as “collective security,” and disarmament was proposed as a solution to conflicts rather actually addressing the conflicts.
Carr maintains that the Versailles order broke down not because of individual wickedness (Hitler) but structural weakness. There is truth in this, but that is a step too simplistic. In 1920, many in Britain and Germany agreed upon what were the just and unjust parts of the Treaty of Versailles. But Germany lacked the power to change anything—until, years later, it embraced a deeply cynical view of power and forced its way out of the system. Rather than win British support, this aggressive stance alienated a potential ally. Thus, the period of 1919 to 1939 can be described like this, "The abrupt descent from the visionary hopes of the first decade to the grim despair of the second, from a utopia which took little account of reality to a reality from which every element of utopia was excluded." That is all true, but Carr does not take into account that Britain made a very serious attempt to appease Hitler in the late 1930s and it just did not work. Hitler was unappeasable.
As "a reaction against the wish-dreams" of the makers of the Versailles peace, this is a fine book. Their wonderfully liberal ideas contemplated a world consensus that did not exist, and did not take into account sufficiently the idea of power in politics. However, the book is organized and meant to prevent future statesmen from making similar mistakes, so it is better as a sort of textbook of principles of international relations rather than a systematic exposition of the history of the twenty years from 1919 to 1939. For that, when I was in university, I read “The Great Powers and the Breakdown of the European States System,” 1914 – 1939 by Graham Ross.
August 10, 2025
Many summaries of International Relations (IR) theory start with E.H. Carr's critique of idealism. He was influential on the realist mainstream and various strands of critical theory. Published in 1939, The Twenty Years' Crisis entered the canon, an irony of fate and I think that is still good to read it. But before I discuss its content, great caution is required, a feeling shared by the editor of this edition M. Cox who prefaced it with a lengthy study.
A first warning. E.H. Carr's ideas were a combination of radical Left and imperialistic tendencies. He criticized the status quo powers of his time and pleaded for whoever happened to be the system`s challenger in that period. In The Twenty Years' Crisis , he argued for an understanding between the Great Powers on the back of the smaller states from Eastern Europe, a stance which goes against my beliefs, because it is contradictory in general and harmful to the people in this region.
The second warning, the one suggested by the reviewer quotes and underlined by M. Cox in the preface. E.H. Carr argued in favor of appeasement, especially for making a deal with Nazi Germany right before World War Two started, so the book can be questioned on both accounts of morality and expediency. M. Cox shows that the author tried to change the text in the postwar edition of The Twenty Years' Crisis , but the message is still there. Then E.H. Carr distanced himself from the International Relations discipline, as shown in the condensed biography by M. Griffith in Fifty Key Thinkers in International Relations.
Taking these two warnings into consideration, why should anyone read the book? The standard reasons are the clarity of its argument and the book’s place in the canon of International Relations theory, which means that is needed to pass the exam. E.H. Carr was also an eccentric member of the British elite of its time, sharing the same top-down view of the world, and it was easy to ignore some hypothetical critics from Eastern Europe. I recommend it for two motives: parts of his arguments are still worth discussing, and the combination of radical Left and imperialistic ideas still exists, and its weak points are easy to expose by a skeptical reading of The Twenty Years' Crisis .
The main argument retained in the IR is the realist critique of interwar liberalism (utopianism, idealism). E.H. Carr argued that humans have a social nature, which means politics is a relationship among groups, be they classes or nations. In The Twenty Years' Crisis , the author underlined that this interaction is a mixture of power and idealism, and any analysis should find a balance between these two poles. The problem in the interwar period was that the international order relied on ideas disjoined from their needed power distribution, or to put it otherwise, that the Western Democracies became hallucinatory imperialists.
Why is power so relevant in this domain? E.H. Carr considers that, in international relations, the feeling of the political community is weaker than inside of an exemplary nation-state (of course, for him is Great Britain). In The Twenty Years' Crisis , he shows that both the judiciary and the legislative institutions fail here, which means that, when everything falls apart, the main tools available are diplomacy and war. This is the common argument of realists since Hobbes and is still relevant today.
E.H. Carr recommends appeasement by a false analogy with domestic (British) politics in The Twenty Years' Crisis . There, the class struggle between the elite and the working class has led to compromises in social policies, like working hours limits and benefits. He uses this analogy to recommend solutions in international relations, to reconcile power and morality. But the comparison is wrong, because a Great Power challenger is a member of the international oligarchy, of the elite not of the working class, and the issue of community and values remains, which means a better analysis is needed.
This book is part of my reading of IR classics, which started after Russia's renewed aggression against Ukraine. This series is at its third cycle and I`m pursuing it for the same want for clarity, which is helpful in these troubled times when taking a step back is recommended. E.H. Carr's approach is useful since every chapter of The Twenty Years' Crisis is written like a syllogistic step. Thus, it`s easy to see the flaws in the argument and to strengthen my perspective, as recommended once by J.S. Mill in On Liberty.
A first warning. E.H. Carr's ideas were a combination of radical Left and imperialistic tendencies. He criticized the status quo powers of his time and pleaded for whoever happened to be the system`s challenger in that period. In The Twenty Years' Crisis , he argued for an understanding between the Great Powers on the back of the smaller states from Eastern Europe, a stance which goes against my beliefs, because it is contradictory in general and harmful to the people in this region.
The second warning, the one suggested by the reviewer quotes and underlined by M. Cox in the preface. E.H. Carr argued in favor of appeasement, especially for making a deal with Nazi Germany right before World War Two started, so the book can be questioned on both accounts of morality and expediency. M. Cox shows that the author tried to change the text in the postwar edition of The Twenty Years' Crisis , but the message is still there. Then E.H. Carr distanced himself from the International Relations discipline, as shown in the condensed biography by M. Griffith in Fifty Key Thinkers in International Relations.
Taking these two warnings into consideration, why should anyone read the book? The standard reasons are the clarity of its argument and the book’s place in the canon of International Relations theory, which means that is needed to pass the exam. E.H. Carr was also an eccentric member of the British elite of its time, sharing the same top-down view of the world, and it was easy to ignore some hypothetical critics from Eastern Europe. I recommend it for two motives: parts of his arguments are still worth discussing, and the combination of radical Left and imperialistic ideas still exists, and its weak points are easy to expose by a skeptical reading of The Twenty Years' Crisis .
The main argument retained in the IR is the realist critique of interwar liberalism (utopianism, idealism). E.H. Carr argued that humans have a social nature, which means politics is a relationship among groups, be they classes or nations. In The Twenty Years' Crisis , the author underlined that this interaction is a mixture of power and idealism, and any analysis should find a balance between these two poles. The problem in the interwar period was that the international order relied on ideas disjoined from their needed power distribution, or to put it otherwise, that the Western Democracies became hallucinatory imperialists.
Why is power so relevant in this domain? E.H. Carr considers that, in international relations, the feeling of the political community is weaker than inside of an exemplary nation-state (of course, for him is Great Britain). In The Twenty Years' Crisis , he shows that both the judiciary and the legislative institutions fail here, which means that, when everything falls apart, the main tools available are diplomacy and war. This is the common argument of realists since Hobbes and is still relevant today.
E.H. Carr recommends appeasement by a false analogy with domestic (British) politics in The Twenty Years' Crisis . There, the class struggle between the elite and the working class has led to compromises in social policies, like working hours limits and benefits. He uses this analogy to recommend solutions in international relations, to reconcile power and morality. But the comparison is wrong, because a Great Power challenger is a member of the international oligarchy, of the elite not of the working class, and the issue of community and values remains, which means a better analysis is needed.
This book is part of my reading of IR classics, which started after Russia's renewed aggression against Ukraine. This series is at its third cycle and I`m pursuing it for the same want for clarity, which is helpful in these troubled times when taking a step back is recommended. E.H. Carr's approach is useful since every chapter of The Twenty Years' Crisis is written like a syllogistic step. Thus, it`s easy to see the flaws in the argument and to strengthen my perspective, as recommended once by J.S. Mill in On Liberty.
March 30, 2009
Though we all know you can't judge a book by its cover, we sometimes ignore that a short book can be more dense and difficult than a much longer one.
So it was with E.H. Carr's work. This is a superb work of political philosophy. It is filled with insight that rings as true today, as it did in 1939, when he wrote it. But, it is like reading a book on philosophy. The density of concepts had me re-reading sentences twice and three times to make sure I took all the ideas in. While Carr illustrates his work broadly with many examples that are familiar and commonly understood, it still resides up a couple of levels of abstraction from my usual consumption of narrative history.
So, what was it all about? Well, Professor Carr is writing just after the outbreak of World War II. Though he never expresses it directly, he is obviously mad at the ninnies in the west who's head in the sky policies have brought all of this about. Yes, that's right, we've got an English historian writing a book during the phoney war phase of WWII, and he is mad at the west.
Why? It seems western thought after WWI took a decided turn to the utopian. We sought, collectively, to divorce international relations from power politics (that's right Woodrow, we are talking about you), and instead base the international system on such chimeras as "world public opinion" and the community of interests.
None of this ended up working out. We had the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Naval Disarmament Treaties. They all started from the premise that morality, without reference to power, is what should govern the affairs of nations. Furthermore, there were no intractable differences between nations, for all that needed to happen was an illumination on the benefits of the status quo to nations like Germany, Japan and Italy.
Carr thinks all of this is hogwash. He stands for the simple and intuitive proposition that morality and power have to go hand in hand for a succesful foreign policy. Morality without power is empty rhetoric. Naked power is inevitably resisted. Cloaking one with the other is what is required for succes. This may seem common sensical these days, but in a world reeling from the impact of the "War to End War." You can imagine how western thinking got a little off course.
Carr is a member of distinguished class of British historians, including AJP Taylor and Trevor Roeper that lived through the two great wars and provided invaluable insight into their origins. Interestingly, though Carr was a defender of the realist school, he also became an ardent supporter of the accomplishments of the Soviet Union (the imaginary utopia of all imaginary utopias). Like AJP Taylor, while his analysis of the interwar era is a tour-de-force of scholarship, after the second world war, he seems to have lost his way. Taylor became so rabidly anti-German he opposed NATO for Germany's participation. Carr saw so much virtue in Stalin's programme, he became convinced of the flaws of the profit motive and advocated for a socialist-planned economy.
Well, you can't be right all of the time. This book is subtitled an introduction to international relations. It certainly has more to do with that than the 1930s proper. This is a book written by a brilliant mind, and its prescience about a number of outcomes is startling at times. While it was not a "pleasure read" by any measure, it definitely left me wiser for having read it.
So it was with E.H. Carr's work. This is a superb work of political philosophy. It is filled with insight that rings as true today, as it did in 1939, when he wrote it. But, it is like reading a book on philosophy. The density of concepts had me re-reading sentences twice and three times to make sure I took all the ideas in. While Carr illustrates his work broadly with many examples that are familiar and commonly understood, it still resides up a couple of levels of abstraction from my usual consumption of narrative history.
So, what was it all about? Well, Professor Carr is writing just after the outbreak of World War II. Though he never expresses it directly, he is obviously mad at the ninnies in the west who's head in the sky policies have brought all of this about. Yes, that's right, we've got an English historian writing a book during the phoney war phase of WWII, and he is mad at the west.
Why? It seems western thought after WWI took a decided turn to the utopian. We sought, collectively, to divorce international relations from power politics (that's right Woodrow, we are talking about you), and instead base the international system on such chimeras as "world public opinion" and the community of interests.
None of this ended up working out. We had the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Naval Disarmament Treaties. They all started from the premise that morality, without reference to power, is what should govern the affairs of nations. Furthermore, there were no intractable differences between nations, for all that needed to happen was an illumination on the benefits of the status quo to nations like Germany, Japan and Italy.
Carr thinks all of this is hogwash. He stands for the simple and intuitive proposition that morality and power have to go hand in hand for a succesful foreign policy. Morality without power is empty rhetoric. Naked power is inevitably resisted. Cloaking one with the other is what is required for succes. This may seem common sensical these days, but in a world reeling from the impact of the "War to End War." You can imagine how western thinking got a little off course.
Carr is a member of distinguished class of British historians, including AJP Taylor and Trevor Roeper that lived through the two great wars and provided invaluable insight into their origins. Interestingly, though Carr was a defender of the realist school, he also became an ardent supporter of the accomplishments of the Soviet Union (the imaginary utopia of all imaginary utopias). Like AJP Taylor, while his analysis of the interwar era is a tour-de-force of scholarship, after the second world war, he seems to have lost his way. Taylor became so rabidly anti-German he opposed NATO for Germany's participation. Carr saw so much virtue in Stalin's programme, he became convinced of the flaws of the profit motive and advocated for a socialist-planned economy.
Well, you can't be right all of the time. This book is subtitled an introduction to international relations. It certainly has more to do with that than the 1930s proper. This is a book written by a brilliant mind, and its prescience about a number of outcomes is startling at times. While it was not a "pleasure read" by any measure, it definitely left me wiser for having read it.
July 26, 2021
This seminal text, cited as being the first major work on the study of International Relations, is so much more than that.
E.H. Carr asks us to consider the categories of utopia and reality, of power and morality, in Europe 1919-1939, and how they impacted on the behaviour of populations, politicians and states. For those looking to go beyond learning the facts of history and to really try and analyse it, this would be an ideal starting point (as would Carr's other seminal work What Is History?).
I'd especially recommend this to readers coming from a left wing perspective. The realist school of international relations is now generally considered the province of the political right, but Carr's own Marxist influences radiate through this text to great effect.
The Twenty Years' Crisis is one of those fundamental works that will help readers, regardless of their worldview, to wrench open their intellectual and political horizons.
E.H. Carr asks us to consider the categories of utopia and reality, of power and morality, in Europe 1919-1939, and how they impacted on the behaviour of populations, politicians and states. For those looking to go beyond learning the facts of history and to really try and analyse it, this would be an ideal starting point (as would Carr's other seminal work What Is History?).
I'd especially recommend this to readers coming from a left wing perspective. The realist school of international relations is now generally considered the province of the political right, but Carr's own Marxist influences radiate through this text to great effect.
The Twenty Years' Crisis is one of those fundamental works that will help readers, regardless of their worldview, to wrench open their intellectual and political horizons.
December 8, 2008
Simply the best introductory international relations text ever written. (Although keep your eyes on global politics: a new introduction.) Carr is one of the twentieth century's great thinkers who writes in clean clear prose, who presents insights of great depth, and who does not underestimate the reader's needs. Even after repeated reading, I find richness and resonance in his words. Published in 1939, it not only holds up, it surpasses everything since. Indeed, Carr's ability to include political economy (chapter 4 on the the "harmony of interests") as part of his discussion of idealism is marvelous.
It is enough to read the first six chapters and the conclusion to get what you might need from this.
Thucydides "Melian Dialogues" (in his The History of the Peloponnesian Wars), and the first three chapters of Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society, Kenneth Waltz' Man, the state, and War are all you need to set yourself up for an introductory course on international relations.
It is enough to read the first six chapters and the conclusion to get what you might need from this.
Thucydides "Melian Dialogues" (in his The History of the Peloponnesian Wars), and the first three chapters of Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society, Kenneth Waltz' Man, the state, and War are all you need to set yourself up for an introductory course on international relations.
February 19, 2019
I suggest to read together with Laurence Rees’ impressive book, Behind Closed Doors, as a case study of inter-war period.
November 1, 2019
While not every word of this old text is gripping, overall the power of EH Carr's thinking shines through in a critique that has formed one of the foundational texts of realism. Carr wrote this book just at the outbreak of WWII to argue that the last 20 years of "utopian" IR thinking had left the Western world unprepared for the rise of revisionist powers like the Nazis. The funny thing about the book is that his main thesis, that the utopianism of the LoN and Wilson was at fault for the rise of Nazism, didn't really add up to me, but the general defense of realism did, even though I would not quite call myself a realist.
I thought this book had 2 really interesting contributions. First, Carr argues that ideas like the "harmony of interests" among states is really a cover for status quo powers maintaining the status quo and delegitimizing challengers. To be more specific: Carr says that status quo powers need to be aware that they are doing this; he doesn't necessarily root for the underdog, but he appreciates that the underdog powers see that this is often the case. Of course, I think Carr is about half-right with this principal, but if taken too far it would lead to false moral equivalences. Luckily, Carr is not a zealot or purist realist in any sense, so he concedes that none of his arguments set up rock-solid principles to be applied in all cases.
Second, Carr argues that power is at the root of international politics and, really, the triumph or fall of almost any idea. He criticizes the new utopianism for ignoring the reality of power and the fact that no moral argument in international politics gets anywhere if it doesn't gain influence in or over powerful states. This is, of course, basically true: one of the reasons I enjoy studying great power politics as well as party politics in the United States is that the proximity to power makes the ideas that these people hold far more relevant than the ideas that, say, you or I hold. This is a fact that much fo the modern academy wants to forget.
Carr's book provides a dose of humility and realism, and I'd say that it is still worth reading for students of international politics and realism v. liberalism in particular. The chapters on Peaceful Change as well as Power and Morality in International Politics are especially remarkable.
I thought this book had 2 really interesting contributions. First, Carr argues that ideas like the "harmony of interests" among states is really a cover for status quo powers maintaining the status quo and delegitimizing challengers. To be more specific: Carr says that status quo powers need to be aware that they are doing this; he doesn't necessarily root for the underdog, but he appreciates that the underdog powers see that this is often the case. Of course, I think Carr is about half-right with this principal, but if taken too far it would lead to false moral equivalences. Luckily, Carr is not a zealot or purist realist in any sense, so he concedes that none of his arguments set up rock-solid principles to be applied in all cases.
Second, Carr argues that power is at the root of international politics and, really, the triumph or fall of almost any idea. He criticizes the new utopianism for ignoring the reality of power and the fact that no moral argument in international politics gets anywhere if it doesn't gain influence in or over powerful states. This is, of course, basically true: one of the reasons I enjoy studying great power politics as well as party politics in the United States is that the proximity to power makes the ideas that these people hold far more relevant than the ideas that, say, you or I hold. This is a fact that much fo the modern academy wants to forget.
Carr's book provides a dose of humility and realism, and I'd say that it is still worth reading for students of international politics and realism v. liberalism in particular. The chapters on Peaceful Change as well as Power and Morality in International Politics are especially remarkable.
September 27, 2018
I learned so much!!!
January 6, 2025
E.H Carr, writing a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, asserted that humanity’s task was to “explore the ruins of our international order and discover on what fresh foundations we may hope to rebuild it.”
We’ve since gone through two more global orders: the Cold War and the era of American hegemony which followed 1989. That’s over, though when it ended is up for debate. We’re back to 1939, facing the same sort of problems as EH Carr, this time supercharged by the apocalyptic cocktail of climate change and the possibility of nuclear war.
The story is familiar: an understandably resentful Russia and an ascendant China confront an America in decline. The United States is still number one -- although the American elite are divided on both the why and the how -- and would like to keep it that way. DC Liberals sermonize about the rule of law and international norms. Trump only cares about what underpins them: raw power. The truth is that American power depends on both, and both are crumbling. But collapse isn’t inevitable. A weakened United States still has a chance to reassert hegemony over the world. It will try.
The architects of the post-Cold War settlement were utopians. A benevolent United States would watch over the world. Neoliberal capitalism and a fuzzy thing called human rights would reign. The United States would intervene to knock down any challenges to this system. This wasn’t just for the benefit of the United States. It was in service of all of humanity. As Carr observes of the British in the 19th Century, the main beneficiaries of the status quo always come to realize that they are acting on behalf of the world. This isn’t cynical on their part, either; it’s a real conviction. Consider Anthony Blinken, playing “Keep on Rockin in the Free world” in a Kiev bar. No cynic would humiliate himself like that.
The current system is clearly unjust. Gorbachev naively expected that Russia would be brought into what he called the “common European home” after he ended the Soviet Union. Instead it was humiliated, consigned to the capitalist periphery as an exporter of primary commodities. China, the second largest economy in the world, believes it deserves a seat at the table. The United States would prefer it knew its place -- making the cheap products necessary for keeping working class life in the West somewhat bearable.
Most of the world is tired of watching America and its well-developed protectorates live high on the hog at their expense. There is a desire to replace American dominance with some sort of multipolar arrangement. What that would look like is at present ill defined. I believe Carr would call this alternative a “realist” approach as it recognizes the fact of American weakness. But Carr also argues that there’s no such thing as a purely realist approach, as all thought begins with a motive. The Utopian “ought” at the heart of the advocates of multipolarity is that it would be a redress of an unequal and unfair system. They’d be right, but there’s no guarantee that whatever came next would be better.
Whatever comes next may, in fact, be worse. The Utopian thinking of the architects of post-1989 American hegemony is a material fact. The maintenance of the international status quo is, in a perverse way, good for humanity. I’m afraid that a serious challenge to American hegemony by other nation states (China and Russia in this case) will end in nuclear catastrophe. I’m unconvinced that a system of territorially bound political units will be capable of preventing war and climate collapse in the long run. There must be some sort of “super-state.”
It’s practically mandatory for a socialist like me to finish by tooting about the necessity of world revolution. Right now that seems just about as likely as an alien imposed paradise. I’m not counting either out, but what about the interim? There are two precedents for effective, nation spanning institutions: the Catholic Church and the multinational corporation (sort of). Neither have been great for humanity (perhaps I’ll find out I’m wrong about the former when I die).
It’s easy to reach this impasse and drift off into the utopian, without recognizing the facts on the ground. Can we build an international order that can avoid war and destruction, or will we have to wait until this one explodes and once again dig through the ruins to find a new foundation? That is, if any of us are left, because this time the ruins will be glowing.
We’ve since gone through two more global orders: the Cold War and the era of American hegemony which followed 1989. That’s over, though when it ended is up for debate. We’re back to 1939, facing the same sort of problems as EH Carr, this time supercharged by the apocalyptic cocktail of climate change and the possibility of nuclear war.
The story is familiar: an understandably resentful Russia and an ascendant China confront an America in decline. The United States is still number one -- although the American elite are divided on both the why and the how -- and would like to keep it that way. DC Liberals sermonize about the rule of law and international norms. Trump only cares about what underpins them: raw power. The truth is that American power depends on both, and both are crumbling. But collapse isn’t inevitable. A weakened United States still has a chance to reassert hegemony over the world. It will try.
The architects of the post-Cold War settlement were utopians. A benevolent United States would watch over the world. Neoliberal capitalism and a fuzzy thing called human rights would reign. The United States would intervene to knock down any challenges to this system. This wasn’t just for the benefit of the United States. It was in service of all of humanity. As Carr observes of the British in the 19th Century, the main beneficiaries of the status quo always come to realize that they are acting on behalf of the world. This isn’t cynical on their part, either; it’s a real conviction. Consider Anthony Blinken, playing “Keep on Rockin in the Free world” in a Kiev bar. No cynic would humiliate himself like that.
The current system is clearly unjust. Gorbachev naively expected that Russia would be brought into what he called the “common European home” after he ended the Soviet Union. Instead it was humiliated, consigned to the capitalist periphery as an exporter of primary commodities. China, the second largest economy in the world, believes it deserves a seat at the table. The United States would prefer it knew its place -- making the cheap products necessary for keeping working class life in the West somewhat bearable.
Most of the world is tired of watching America and its well-developed protectorates live high on the hog at their expense. There is a desire to replace American dominance with some sort of multipolar arrangement. What that would look like is at present ill defined. I believe Carr would call this alternative a “realist” approach as it recognizes the fact of American weakness. But Carr also argues that there’s no such thing as a purely realist approach, as all thought begins with a motive. The Utopian “ought” at the heart of the advocates of multipolarity is that it would be a redress of an unequal and unfair system. They’d be right, but there’s no guarantee that whatever came next would be better.
Whatever comes next may, in fact, be worse. The Utopian thinking of the architects of post-1989 American hegemony is a material fact. The maintenance of the international status quo is, in a perverse way, good for humanity. I’m afraid that a serious challenge to American hegemony by other nation states (China and Russia in this case) will end in nuclear catastrophe. I’m unconvinced that a system of territorially bound political units will be capable of preventing war and climate collapse in the long run. There must be some sort of “super-state.”
It’s practically mandatory for a socialist like me to finish by tooting about the necessity of world revolution. Right now that seems just about as likely as an alien imposed paradise. I’m not counting either out, but what about the interim? There are two precedents for effective, nation spanning institutions: the Catholic Church and the multinational corporation (sort of). Neither have been great for humanity (perhaps I’ll find out I’m wrong about the former when I die).
It’s easy to reach this impasse and drift off into the utopian, without recognizing the facts on the ground. Can we build an international order that can avoid war and destruction, or will we have to wait until this one explodes and once again dig through the ruins to find a new foundation? That is, if any of us are left, because this time the ruins will be glowing.
March 13, 2013
This book is impressively argued, but I couldn't help but think that I would have been a lot more interested in it when I was a college student, when the issues it raised for some reason seemed more relevant in my life.
Basically, E.H. Carr urged greater realism in international relations after the disasters of the post-World War I era and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations. One passage I highlighted that touches on several of the points he made:
"Just as within the state every government, though it needs power as a basis of its authority, also needs the moral basis of the consent of the governed, so an international order cannot be based on power alone, for the simple reason that mankind will in the long run always revolt against naked power. Any international order presupposes a substantial measure of general consent. We shall, indeed, condemn ourselves to disappointment if we exaggerate the role while morality is likely to play. The fatal dualism of politics will always keep considerations of morality entangled with considerations of power. We shall never arrive at a political order in which the grievances of the weak and the few receive the same prompt attention as the grievances of the strong and the many. Power goes far to create the morality convenient to itself, and coercion is a fruitful source of consent. But when all these reserves have been made, it remains true that a new international order and a new international harmony can be built up only on the basis of an ascendancy which is generally accepted as tolerant and unoppressive or, at any rate, as preferable to any practicable alternative. To create these conditions is the moral task of the ascendant Power or Powers."
Basically, E.H. Carr urged greater realism in international relations after the disasters of the post-World War I era and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations. One passage I highlighted that touches on several of the points he made:
"Just as within the state every government, though it needs power as a basis of its authority, also needs the moral basis of the consent of the governed, so an international order cannot be based on power alone, for the simple reason that mankind will in the long run always revolt against naked power. Any international order presupposes a substantial measure of general consent. We shall, indeed, condemn ourselves to disappointment if we exaggerate the role while morality is likely to play. The fatal dualism of politics will always keep considerations of morality entangled with considerations of power. We shall never arrive at a political order in which the grievances of the weak and the few receive the same prompt attention as the grievances of the strong and the many. Power goes far to create the morality convenient to itself, and coercion is a fruitful source of consent. But when all these reserves have been made, it remains true that a new international order and a new international harmony can be built up only on the basis of an ascendancy which is generally accepted as tolerant and unoppressive or, at any rate, as preferable to any practicable alternative. To create these conditions is the moral task of the ascendant Power or Powers."
March 13, 2019
There's a lot I could say about this book, but I'll leave it at this: it's the best book on international relations that I've read. Still, a complete lifetime later, the book remains highly relevant to explaining and responding to political happenings today.
August 15, 2011
Edward Hallett Carr was a British historian who wrote, among other subjects, about the early Soviet Union, the period between the two world wars and, not least, a superb study of history itself. I've recently reread his book about the inter-war period, 1919-1939, that attempts to explain the failure of Europe and the United States to fashion a new international order that would prevent the very things that did occur with the rise of fascism and Nazism. It's an interesting subject, but Carr has a way of making anything he writes about seem interesting and even something more.
Because he is more than just a chronicler of events with a little analysis thrown in, Carr traces the attitudes and polices that gave rise to the stupidities that followed the conclusion of the first European conflagration, a holocaust in its own right if one looks at the number of dead, almost all soldiers, millions, sometimes tens of thousands in one battle. Carr takes us all the way back to the Middle Ages to get at the roots of the thinking or lack thereof that produced that kind of carnage and the disaster that was to follow twenty years later, though then far worse for non-combatants than for those in the militaries.
As I said, all interesting stuff, but not a book I picked up for a second time to shed light on our present world and its own stupidities. But, much to my surprise, I found in Carr's analysis of a period now almost a full century past a template over which the blunders of the last ten or twenty years fit as nicely as an old glove.
Carr reminds us that in the early twentieth century international affairs were the purview strictly of professionals frequently acting in secret, and that was the way most people thought it should be. But the debacle of the first world war exposed the failure of that kind of diplomacy and enabled Woodrow Wilson's more idealistic, though no less disastrous, approach to foreign relations. It looked like a new and more democratic policy at the time, but from Carr's wider point of view it was actually the old medieval, utopian way of seeing things that had supposedly been routed by the Enlightenment. But that new way of thinking had then itself been contested by socialism and other social and political movements of the nineteenth century.
For Carr the pendulum swings between realists exemplified by the government bureaucrat—a conservative who insists the way things have been done is the way they should continue to be done—and the utopian who believes that if enough people want things to change for the better it will change, even to the point of bringing about a communist or other kind of millennium. For the utopians the facts are secondary to the purpose. Never mind that many of the new nations Wilsonian ideals created had no direct or even historical idea what democracy meant; democracy was the best way to live and democracy would transform them.
As I say, after a few chapters, this started to sound familiar. So, I took the template of Wilsonian idealism and over it placed the template of the neo-conservative agenda George W. Bush was identified with and came up with a surprisingly neat fit. The battle cry for the war in Iraq, once the "facts" of WMDs and Saddam Hussein's support for al Qaida were no longer tenable, became to bring the benefits of democracy to the Middle East—almost a word-for-word repetition of the Wilsonian goals to "make the world safe for democracy" and his post-war policy of offering, if not imposing, democracy on the parts of Europe that were supposed to be clamoring for it.
George W. Bush was no Wilson, of course, but he was a handy vehicle for the neo-cons whose policies he came to espouse who maintained over and over that human beings are born with a yen to live in a democratic state, by which they mean pretty much our own republican, elective and, most importantly, free-market system. The facts of another nation's history and traditions are bothersome but not insurmountable. All mankind thirsts for freedom. Our job, indeed our God-given mission, is to give them the opportunity to slake that thirst at the pure well of American-style free enterprise and representative government.
The disasters that have ensued from pursuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to free their peoples from tyranny and bring them Western-style government has, happily, shaken the faith of many Americans in the wisdom of crusades of this kind—an appropriate word; weren't the original crusades attempts to bring Western values to the non-believers of the Middle East?
It gives one pause at first, using the word "utopian" with regard to the Bush administration, but as Carr sees it utopian—as opposed to fact-driven—is what that kind of policy amounts to, i.e. an ideal- or idea-driven agenda.
Next I decided to put the previous, Clinton administration under the same template and see how it matched up or failed to match up. I was scarcely over the frisson that had accompanied my realization that Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld were utopians than it struck me that the progenitor of this strain of contemporary American politics, more or less constant for the twenty years preceding the George W. Bush administration, was Ronald Reagan. By contrast with Bush-Cheney, Reagan now looks like a pragmatist, but it was he who convinced the electorate that God was indeed backing our jockeys and implemented as best he could a policy of brutal adventurism abroad in the name of democracy and a return to free-market free-for-all domestically. The current depression in which we are mired has its roots in Reagan initiatives against government regulation and in behalf of unfettered corporate capitalism.
It was Reagan who spoke about America being a Golden City on a Hill and the Soviets as the Evil Empire. After a decade of disastrous pragmatism in the ‘70s, Americans gobbled up this kind of rhetoric, as if eager to return to the missionary zeal that had gotten us involved in a war in Vietnam from which we had exited with our tails between our legs.
George Bush senior brought us full circle, driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait, after which we were treated to a Caesar-like victory parade, chanting, We're number one! But the elder Bush was a pragmatist at heart. So was Ross Perrot, the man who cost GHWB his reelection, along with an economic downturn that seems piddling by the last years' events. As a result we got eight years of Clinton who, perhaps more than any other modern president, was pragmatic to the point of ineffectual.
I think all this is worth saying because we have a tendency to associate idealism/utopianism with well-meaning if misguided good guys and realistic pragmatism with those of evil intent. And usually the idealistic eggheads are arguing for liberal—or, as they are known now, "progressive" ideals—while the realists are hell-bent on nothing more than making lots of money.
Plato, the original utopian if you leave out the Book of Genesis, was unashamedly cynical in the methods he advocated for running his ideal state—essentially a more efficient version of fascist Sparta. Plato was all for lying to the hoi polloi about religion, for instance, because, as he cynically put it, religion is a useful tool for keeping them in line.
The neo-cons, supposedly products of a Platonist who taught them at the University of Chicago, seem far more airheaded than the ancient original. Their utopian notions of a new world order are as divorced from present and historical realities as anything the communists or fascists came up with or, for that matter, the End Days of the religious fundamentalists. Even Reagan kept loonies like these at arm's length. It was 9/11 that gave them their opportunity to insinuate themselves into international policy-making, championed by Vice-President Cheney, who seems to have been a late convert to their cause, unless he was just using them to further his own agenda.
In any case, it's not a bad idea to rethink these matters from time to time, see them fresh through the perspective of someone like Carr. The truth is frequently counterintuitive. Those who do the most harm can be the very people who seem to espouse the noblest causes. Just because the consequences of a policy are death and destruction on a massive scale doesn't mean the theory behind it isn't utopian. There is no moral privilege attached to either realists or utopians. The only test that matters is who benefits and who suffers. We should beware the temptations of both pragmatists who disdain anything but chauvinistic gain and utopians who promise us a better future when that promise involves the means justifying the ends.
So far Obama seems to be a return to Clintonian pragmatism, with the same inclination to please everybody, starting with his biggest contributors on Wall Street. I've begun to suspect the only way we ever get real change in the White House is if the occupant arrives there by accident, the way Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman did. But even that possibility is diminished by the more rigorous vetting process modern vice-presidential candidates undergo. To give him credit, Obama did say he would do whatever we force him to do. But the only people who have put any real pressure on him are the ones who occupy corporate suites. God help us when we get the next "utopian" in the Oval Office. He or she may finally bring on the Goetterdammerung Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz seemed to be itching for.
Because he is more than just a chronicler of events with a little analysis thrown in, Carr traces the attitudes and polices that gave rise to the stupidities that followed the conclusion of the first European conflagration, a holocaust in its own right if one looks at the number of dead, almost all soldiers, millions, sometimes tens of thousands in one battle. Carr takes us all the way back to the Middle Ages to get at the roots of the thinking or lack thereof that produced that kind of carnage and the disaster that was to follow twenty years later, though then far worse for non-combatants than for those in the militaries.
As I said, all interesting stuff, but not a book I picked up for a second time to shed light on our present world and its own stupidities. But, much to my surprise, I found in Carr's analysis of a period now almost a full century past a template over which the blunders of the last ten or twenty years fit as nicely as an old glove.
Carr reminds us that in the early twentieth century international affairs were the purview strictly of professionals frequently acting in secret, and that was the way most people thought it should be. But the debacle of the first world war exposed the failure of that kind of diplomacy and enabled Woodrow Wilson's more idealistic, though no less disastrous, approach to foreign relations. It looked like a new and more democratic policy at the time, but from Carr's wider point of view it was actually the old medieval, utopian way of seeing things that had supposedly been routed by the Enlightenment. But that new way of thinking had then itself been contested by socialism and other social and political movements of the nineteenth century.
For Carr the pendulum swings between realists exemplified by the government bureaucrat—a conservative who insists the way things have been done is the way they should continue to be done—and the utopian who believes that if enough people want things to change for the better it will change, even to the point of bringing about a communist or other kind of millennium. For the utopians the facts are secondary to the purpose. Never mind that many of the new nations Wilsonian ideals created had no direct or even historical idea what democracy meant; democracy was the best way to live and democracy would transform them.
As I say, after a few chapters, this started to sound familiar. So, I took the template of Wilsonian idealism and over it placed the template of the neo-conservative agenda George W. Bush was identified with and came up with a surprisingly neat fit. The battle cry for the war in Iraq, once the "facts" of WMDs and Saddam Hussein's support for al Qaida were no longer tenable, became to bring the benefits of democracy to the Middle East—almost a word-for-word repetition of the Wilsonian goals to "make the world safe for democracy" and his post-war policy of offering, if not imposing, democracy on the parts of Europe that were supposed to be clamoring for it.
George W. Bush was no Wilson, of course, but he was a handy vehicle for the neo-cons whose policies he came to espouse who maintained over and over that human beings are born with a yen to live in a democratic state, by which they mean pretty much our own republican, elective and, most importantly, free-market system. The facts of another nation's history and traditions are bothersome but not insurmountable. All mankind thirsts for freedom. Our job, indeed our God-given mission, is to give them the opportunity to slake that thirst at the pure well of American-style free enterprise and representative government.
The disasters that have ensued from pursuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to free their peoples from tyranny and bring them Western-style government has, happily, shaken the faith of many Americans in the wisdom of crusades of this kind—an appropriate word; weren't the original crusades attempts to bring Western values to the non-believers of the Middle East?
It gives one pause at first, using the word "utopian" with regard to the Bush administration, but as Carr sees it utopian—as opposed to fact-driven—is what that kind of policy amounts to, i.e. an ideal- or idea-driven agenda.
Next I decided to put the previous, Clinton administration under the same template and see how it matched up or failed to match up. I was scarcely over the frisson that had accompanied my realization that Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld were utopians than it struck me that the progenitor of this strain of contemporary American politics, more or less constant for the twenty years preceding the George W. Bush administration, was Ronald Reagan. By contrast with Bush-Cheney, Reagan now looks like a pragmatist, but it was he who convinced the electorate that God was indeed backing our jockeys and implemented as best he could a policy of brutal adventurism abroad in the name of democracy and a return to free-market free-for-all domestically. The current depression in which we are mired has its roots in Reagan initiatives against government regulation and in behalf of unfettered corporate capitalism.
It was Reagan who spoke about America being a Golden City on a Hill and the Soviets as the Evil Empire. After a decade of disastrous pragmatism in the ‘70s, Americans gobbled up this kind of rhetoric, as if eager to return to the missionary zeal that had gotten us involved in a war in Vietnam from which we had exited with our tails between our legs.
George Bush senior brought us full circle, driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait, after which we were treated to a Caesar-like victory parade, chanting, We're number one! But the elder Bush was a pragmatist at heart. So was Ross Perrot, the man who cost GHWB his reelection, along with an economic downturn that seems piddling by the last years' events. As a result we got eight years of Clinton who, perhaps more than any other modern president, was pragmatic to the point of ineffectual.
I think all this is worth saying because we have a tendency to associate idealism/utopianism with well-meaning if misguided good guys and realistic pragmatism with those of evil intent. And usually the idealistic eggheads are arguing for liberal—or, as they are known now, "progressive" ideals—while the realists are hell-bent on nothing more than making lots of money.
Plato, the original utopian if you leave out the Book of Genesis, was unashamedly cynical in the methods he advocated for running his ideal state—essentially a more efficient version of fascist Sparta. Plato was all for lying to the hoi polloi about religion, for instance, because, as he cynically put it, religion is a useful tool for keeping them in line.
The neo-cons, supposedly products of a Platonist who taught them at the University of Chicago, seem far more airheaded than the ancient original. Their utopian notions of a new world order are as divorced from present and historical realities as anything the communists or fascists came up with or, for that matter, the End Days of the religious fundamentalists. Even Reagan kept loonies like these at arm's length. It was 9/11 that gave them their opportunity to insinuate themselves into international policy-making, championed by Vice-President Cheney, who seems to have been a late convert to their cause, unless he was just using them to further his own agenda.
In any case, it's not a bad idea to rethink these matters from time to time, see them fresh through the perspective of someone like Carr. The truth is frequently counterintuitive. Those who do the most harm can be the very people who seem to espouse the noblest causes. Just because the consequences of a policy are death and destruction on a massive scale doesn't mean the theory behind it isn't utopian. There is no moral privilege attached to either realists or utopians. The only test that matters is who benefits and who suffers. We should beware the temptations of both pragmatists who disdain anything but chauvinistic gain and utopians who promise us a better future when that promise involves the means justifying the ends.
So far Obama seems to be a return to Clintonian pragmatism, with the same inclination to please everybody, starting with his biggest contributors on Wall Street. I've begun to suspect the only way we ever get real change in the White House is if the occupant arrives there by accident, the way Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman did. But even that possibility is diminished by the more rigorous vetting process modern vice-presidential candidates undergo. To give him credit, Obama did say he would do whatever we force him to do. But the only people who have put any real pressure on him are the ones who occupy corporate suites. God help us when we get the next "utopian" in the Oval Office. He or she may finally bring on the Goetterdammerung Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz seemed to be itching for.
November 16, 2024
Dont even ask why i am here 💀
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November 30, 2015No book expounding a realist view of international politics has been more influential and controversial than E.H. Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939: A Study in International Relations. Ever since its publication, barely two months after the start of the Second World War, this inventive, bracing work has been subject not merely to regular misinterpretation of its constituent arguments but to consistent misapprehension of its essential propositions. This is at least as much owing to the author’s faults as to those of his admittedly many unsympathetic and narrow-minded critics. Undeniably, no writer in what Carr dismissed as the intellectually flimsy field of international relations has equaled the equipoise of his sentences, the detached hauteur of his style, the nonchalance of his historical erudition, the icy clarity of his forensic critiques. (The classicist M.I. Finley said that Carr’s was “the most controlled intellect” that he’d ever encountered.) But The Twenty Years’ Crisis betrays both the urgency of its time—Carr wrote it between July 1938 and September 1939, certainly the most eventful span in the annals of European diplomacy—and the urgency of an author trying to work through and reconcile a tangle of new, half-developed ideas against a deadline imposed by history. The upshot is a book that makes excessive demands on its readers, a book that continues to yield novel and startling insights into the structure and workings of world politics, generally and, more important for our purposes here, into the sources and conduct of American foreign policy in the second decade of the 21st century.
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May 12, 2020
The Victors of World War I have sown the seeds of another World War, and the second war started with in a short interval - ie., within twenty years. So many reasons are alluded, behavior of victors in the interwar period and excessive War reparations on Germany are some. All men who were the prime movers of International Politics in the Interwar Period were victims of either Utopia or Realism. The League of Nations has personified their totality of failure. Does that mean that the lessons are learnt now? Not entirely true. The reason why there is no World War III (conventionally speaking), is because of the existence of Nuclear Weapons and the worry among nations about Mutually Assured Destruction. Carr clearly explains the problems with conceptions of International Morality, International Law, Public Opinion, Power in various forms - Economic, Military and Public Opinion. And how the power bloc has always couched its actions with the rhetoric of International Order despite knowing very well that there are no global interests. For eg., when the whole free world was captive to couple of European countries these players talked about free markets as the only thing that would benefit global economy, and anything that is good for Britain is by design also good for the whole world. No wonder there was another World War with in Twenty Years. A must read for the student of International Politics.
December 24, 2010
The characteristic vice of the utopian is naivete; of the realist, sterility.
tis true...
tis true...
April 14, 2022
This guy cites Marx, Engels and Mein Kampf equally. And the book is very good. Coincidence?
December 24, 2018
Si bien leído por imperativo académico, debemos reconocer el mérito de este historiador. El libro es brillante, tanto en sus planteamientos y tesis como en su exposición, dialéctica (utopía-realidad, poder-moral, etc.). Las constantes citas a grandes personajes del mundo internacional, a actas y conferencias e incluso a filósofos hablan por sí mismas de la entereza intelectual del autor. El libro, que no lleve a engaño, no es historiografía, sino filosofía política, y por eso mismo es un clásico en las Relaciones Internacionales, porque construye los cimientos desde los que se basa la ya no tan reciente disciplina.
November 1, 2021
was forced to read this bcause of my mid terms. not gonna lie it was a great book to study. HOPING TO GET A GOOD GRADE AFTER READING THIS 😀✋🏻
August 16, 2024
A comprehensive and invaluable introduction by Michael Cox makes this reissue of the classic text by far the best choice available.
October 12, 2023
Where utopianism has become a hollow and intolerable sham, which serves merely as a disguise for the interests of the privileged, the realist performs an indispensable service in unmasking it. But pure realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society impossible. Having demolished the current utopia with the weapons of realism, we still need to build a new utopia of our own, which will one day fall to the same weapons.
- E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis
A delight from start to finish, this is not the book that most International Relations textbooks pretend it to be. Received wisdom is that this slim volume by the liberal diplomat-turned-realist- political theorist-turned-Stalinist historian is the founding work of an IR theory called 'Realism'. Put simply, 'Realists' (and yes they do unironically call themselves that) frame the world as a nightmare of anarchic blood and carnage within which states must always act with an amoral rationalism in the pursuit of power if they are survive in a hostile world.
Whatever the neatness of this hypothesis, it is an entirely state-centric theory, one in which individuals and social groups have little to no agency, and is accordingly most favoured by politicians seeking justifications for their greed, princes eager for flattery, and scholars hoping to get a job writing policy analysis for either. Put more bluntly, Realism is the art of arselicking an autocrat and flattering them for the fine taste.
Of course they'd call this moralistic whining that doesn't change the facts, and in doing so they have a point. All the same, one cannot read a Realist thinker without seeing something faintly ridiculous in the militaristic, hyper-masculine posturing of their prose, freighted as it is with a kistch rationalism; a bias towards short-term strategy; limited historical scoping, and an uncanny knack for always siding with the status quo. Realists see politics as the science of nation-state interactions, but nation-states have barely been around for four centuries, and any political model that cannot cope with the diversity of political structures and ideologies throughout human history is, quite frankly, as unimaginative as it is unrealistic. It is strange to return to Carr then, and realise just how dialectical this man's imagination was.
Written in the build-up to World War II, this is a strange little book. The first half consists of an abstract treatise which splits all International Relations theory into two camps, 'Utopianism' and 'Realism', before the second half uses these concepts to critique the failings of inter-bellum Wilsonite liberalism. Utopianism, for Carr, is an idealistic intellectual impulse that believes in free will and the capacity of humanity to transcend and change the political conditions that it finds itself in through sheer force of will. Realism, on the other hand, is a deterministic science that sees the world through a prism of cause and effect in which all political decisions are predicated on the existing state of the world.
The problem with utopianism in this model is that it divorces political analysis from its historical situation and disavows serious analysis of power. Utopians take moral claims and slap them onto any political situation, demanding that the world conform to (allegedly) eternal ethical ideals, not understanding that their own demands are historically conditioned by power that they've just forgotten their own group is wielding. Anglo-American liberal intellectuals, for instance, were only able to advocate for the abolition of violent conflict after WWI because Anglo-American imperialism had such a stranglehold on the planet that they were able to delude themselves into believing that this status quo was desirable for the whole species.
Realism, on the other hand, looks at how power works in practice. It notices how military power dictates who gets to make decisions about what the world looks like and who gets to have seats at the negotiating tables, it percieves how economic strength forces weaker nations to conform to the interests of hegemonic superpowers, and it spots how much effort established powers put into shaping and controlling public opinion at home or abroad in order to make their own authority acceptable (or at the very least sufferable) to citizens at home.
So Realism is the correct attitude to politics right? That's international relations done and dusted?
If you take the Realist authors who claim to follow Carr at their word, sure. But there's a reason they quote the man so selectively - Carr never confuses a description of how power works with a justification of that power and its methods. That he is more forceful about the need for Realist analysis than Utopian ones within this book is entirely because he considers Utopian thought too prevalent in IR to be useful without being disciplined by Realist tools. His description of Realism is, for the most part, just that - a dispassionate and non-moralistic analysis of how power works in practice; how it shapes the ideologies of its practioners, and how it ultimately decides who is 'right' and 'wrong' in history through the process of victory and defeat.
But that is a pitiful way to view the world, and Carr is firm about this point. Without idealism, a Realist is a slave to the status quo, justifying the most heinous atrocities in the name of pragmatism and serving, with their every breath, merely to prop up unjust realities. Indeed, Carr was to later disown the entire field of International Relations he had helped develop because it had degenerated into an academic discipline devoted to the "study of how to run the world from positions of strength."
Instead of this spineless nihilism, Carr says we must learn how to merge a pragmatic, non-idealistic understanding of realpolitik with an idealistic desire to change our world into something better, since our beliefs about how power works in themselves alter the shape and potential of that power. This is what prevents IR from being a science - our study of the subject alters its reality... within certain limits. A responsible IR scholar is someone who tries to understand our flexibility within those limits and uses this insight to understand how we can shuffle, falteringly, clumsily, towards Utopia, even if we never truly reach it.
'Wait a minute,' I hear you ask. 'Isn't that basically just what Karl Marx used to say?' And the answer to that is... yeah. E.H. Carr was not yet a full-fledged Marxist when he wrote this book, but he was getting there, and it is evident in his steadfast materialist outlook, his self-awareness on the historically dependent nature of ideological and moral perspectives, his cynical analysis of liberal hypocrisy, and his dialectic models that depend on the fusion of binary opposites for the development of more fully developed wholes. The perfection of IR to Carr is the fusion of Utopianism with Realism, just as much as power in his model is the interdependent fusion of military, economic, and propagandistic strength within a fluid, comprehensive whole.
With that in mind, the principle limitation one is confronted with this book (aside from the obvious technical problems that affect any academic text written with such a broad brush and breezy tone) is, quite frankly, the pure cringe of the policies that Carr actually advocated throughout his career. This man wasn't content with being a Marxist, he had to go and become a Stalinist slobbering over what he uncritically believed were the successes of the Five-Year-Plans. This man was one of the foremost proponents of appeasement, the nonsensical policy that saw Western powers grovelling before the rise of Hitler... to the complete surprise and confusion of the nervous Nazi officials who couldn't believe they kept getting away one outrageous bluff after another. It boggles the mind that Carr could shift from such aroiditly penned cynicism in his abstract models to such embarassing credulity in the real world he commanded his readers to pay attention to.
I suspect this failure arose from the poor empiricism of Carr's practice. No matter how ably he discusses the practice of propaganda and ideology, this was a man far too credulous to the claims of totalitarian states about their own power, and accordingly saw the Soviet Union as far richer, and the Nazis as far stronger than they actually were. From this gullibility he proceeded to extract astonishingly skewed interpretations of geopolitical reality, ones that grovelled before the power of meglomaniacal despots with a fetishistic trust in their grandiose military fantasies.
So it goes, I suppose, until the political structure of nation states are finally supplanted by whatever comes next. For as long as we still have the damn things, however, I cannot help noticing that this fault in Carr is, perhaps, one of his only habits that the Realist tradition has remained loyal to...
September 14, 2017
This book was published in September 1939 as Britain was going to war with Germany over the invasion of Poland. The book, despite new editions and having remained in print since that time, makes few concessions to changed views or ideas. Thus, as a history, it’s a first draft, but it's best remembered as a foundational text of what was to become the academic study of international relations. Carr, after having spent around 20 years in the British Foreign Office, accepted an academic post in Wales, where he was working at the time of the publication of the book. The book serves as an outstanding introduction to international relations because whatever its shortcomings as history, it’s a brilliant exposition of the issues of international relations (IR), especially from the realist point-of-view.
Carr is a proponent of the realist view as opposed to what he termed the “utopian” view. In short, he attributed to the utopians the belief that treaties, tribunals, and public opinion would overrule the forces of “power” that create wars. This was the age, following the First World War, when the League of Nations was created and the Kellogg-Brian treaty (1928) that sought to outlaw war as a means of state action. As you know, neither of these worked well for long. Instead, following a long history of realist thought, Carr notes that the struggle for power marked relations between nations during this period, and unlike the situation within nation-states, where governments and laws held sway, relations between nations was one of relative anarchy marked by the use (or threat) of force.
Carr’s arguments and prose are concise and pithy. He understands the crucial differences between and the relation of politics and law. He also concedes the role of morality (however defined) in decision-making, and its effect on public opinion, which while not controlling, is a matter of concern to each government. In short, while a realist, he shows himself a realist who understands that power is more than simply the ability to deploy military force and win wars. He also understands that nations vie for status and power in many ways and that something often guides them other than a cold, hard rationality.
While I consider myself a realist in matters of international relations, I appreciate that other perspectives (liberal internationalism, constructivism, and so on) all have their value and provide insights into this complex field. For someone new to the field, I recommend Carr’s work as an introduction from the realist perspective; i.e., the ability of each state to exert power—primarily by the threat or use of force—is the most reliable guide to understanding the interactions between states. But Carr isn’t blind to other perspectives, either, which serves to enhance the value of his book.
For anyone seeking entry into the field of international relations, I can recommend this book. (I know it's assigned in graduate courses in IR.) Also, this re-issued edition with a preface by Michael Cox provides a wealth of background information about the book and Professor Carr, making it an especially useful edition.
Carr is a proponent of the realist view as opposed to what he termed the “utopian” view. In short, he attributed to the utopians the belief that treaties, tribunals, and public opinion would overrule the forces of “power” that create wars. This was the age, following the First World War, when the League of Nations was created and the Kellogg-Brian treaty (1928) that sought to outlaw war as a means of state action. As you know, neither of these worked well for long. Instead, following a long history of realist thought, Carr notes that the struggle for power marked relations between nations during this period, and unlike the situation within nation-states, where governments and laws held sway, relations between nations was one of relative anarchy marked by the use (or threat) of force.
Carr’s arguments and prose are concise and pithy. He understands the crucial differences between and the relation of politics and law. He also concedes the role of morality (however defined) in decision-making, and its effect on public opinion, which while not controlling, is a matter of concern to each government. In short, while a realist, he shows himself a realist who understands that power is more than simply the ability to deploy military force and win wars. He also understands that nations vie for status and power in many ways and that something often guides them other than a cold, hard rationality.
While I consider myself a realist in matters of international relations, I appreciate that other perspectives (liberal internationalism, constructivism, and so on) all have their value and provide insights into this complex field. For someone new to the field, I recommend Carr’s work as an introduction from the realist perspective; i.e., the ability of each state to exert power—primarily by the threat or use of force—is the most reliable guide to understanding the interactions between states. But Carr isn’t blind to other perspectives, either, which serves to enhance the value of his book.
For anyone seeking entry into the field of international relations, I can recommend this book. (I know it's assigned in graduate courses in IR.) Also, this re-issued edition with a preface by Michael Cox provides a wealth of background information about the book and Professor Carr, making it an especially useful edition.
Read
March 9, 2021"International order' and `international solidarity' will always be slogans of those who
feel strong enough to impose them on others."
"The characteristic vice of the utopian is naivety; of the realist, sterility."
"`Belief, and to speak fairly, honest belief,' wrote Dicey of the divisions of opinion in the nineteenth century about slavery, `was to a great extent the result not of argument, not even of direct self-interest, but of circumstances. . . . Circumstances are the creators of most men's
opinions."
"`Men come easily to believe that arrangements agreeable to themselves are beneficial to others,' as Dicey observed; and theories of the public good, which turn out on inspection to be an elegant disguise for some particular interest, are as common in international as in national affairs."
"Theories of social morality are always the product of a dominant group which identifies itself with the community as a whole, and which possesses facilities denied to subordinate groups or individuals for imposing its view of life on the community."
"The utopian who dreams that it is possible to eliminate self-assertion from politics and to base a political system on morality alone is just as wide of the mark as the realist who believes that altruism is an illusion and that all political action is based on self-seeking."
I started reading this innocently enough out of a desire to gain a better historical understanding of the interwar period. What I hadn't realized until I started working my way through these pages was that E. H. Carr had far larger goals than the mere enumeration of a series of events leading to war. Carr, in The Twenty Years' Crisis, was consciously attempting to analyze the nascent growth of the study of International Relations and set it on firmer theoretical footing than it had up to that point been on.
The central dialectic of the book is that between "utopianism" and "realism," between "theory" and "practice," between the "intellectual" and the "bureaucrat." To be a utopian is to believe in a theoretical moral order that can one day govern international relations. The utopian tries to bend reality to theory, to establish general principles from which truth will flow.
Utopian thought arose following the break-up of the medieval system with its supposition of a universal ethic and universal political system. An example of nascent utopian thought was Jeremy Bentham's "Utilitarianism" which sought greatest happiness in the greatest number. In this way, public opinion became the general guide to the goodness to any particular thing. Never mind the condition this creed left the unhappy minority in. Laissez-faire had a similar response and simialr results. Even as Utilitarianism and laissez-faire lost favor in Europe, they remained a potent force in the United States and would find themselves reflected in the formation of the League of Nations. The League was an attempt to "apply the principles of Lockeian liberalism to the building of a machinery of international order." It failed on account of "too much rationalism," it attempted to outlaw war with natural results. The force of "international public opinion" was not very strong at all in the end. Even Hitler could say that he "desired peace," all he meant was that he wanted to achieve his goals without war, not that he would forsake his goals for such a purpose.
Utopian thought in international relations was in search of the elusive "harmony of interests," the idea that the "highest interest of the individual and the highest interest of the community naturally coincide." "We now know', wrote Mr Henry Ford as recently as 1930, `that anything which is economically right is also morally right. There can be no conflict between good economics and good morals." The harmony of interests seemed to function well enough so long as global markets seemed endless and there was always new land to support, but by the time of the 20th century the frontiers had begun to close. Suddenly the interest of a single state could more evidently stand in contrast to an "interest of the community" which in point of fact was never the interest of the *whole* communitie i.e. those unfortunate enough to have been born in those places that were ruthlessly exploited. "Biologically and economically, the doctrine of the harmony of interests was tenable only if you left out of account the interest of the weak who must be driven to the wall, or called in the next world to redress the balance of the present." The solution was the introduction of Darwinism, the idea that the interest of the strongest was in fact the interest of community because only the strongest could go on. In this way, what was good for the British Empire or for Germany and so on was in fact the best and was destiny.
The realist critique of all the above utopian dreaming was that, in fact, morality was merely a product of power. The British naturally thought laissez-faire was moral; they stood to benefit as they dominated global production and global trade. The British/French/Americans naturally sought to outlaw war; their empires were the status-quo and they wanted to protect their interests. Had Germany been in the same position as the British Empire, they too would have sought to end war and preserve the spoils of wars past. Thought often follows purpose in international relations. When the French were the enemies of the British, they were hated and accused of numerous things. When the Germans became a greater foe, suddenly the French were defenders of liberty. "Thought is not merely relative to the circumstances and interests of the thinker: it is also pragmatic in the sense that it is directed to the fulfillment of his purposes" Following this line of argument, there is in fact no real morality in international relations, only the prerogatives of the stronger and the revisionist powers.
Carr argues that while utopianism had clearly failed by the onset of WWII, realism is equally repugnant as human beings naturally desire a moral system beyond that which the Athenians demonstrated at Melos. As Carr argues, "The conception of politics as an infinite process seems in the long run uncongenial or incomprehensible to the human mind. Every political thinker who wishes to make an appeal to his contemporaries is consciously or unconsciously led to posit a finite goal."
feel strong enough to impose them on others."
"The characteristic vice of the utopian is naivety; of the realist, sterility."
"`Belief, and to speak fairly, honest belief,' wrote Dicey of the divisions of opinion in the nineteenth century about slavery, `was to a great extent the result not of argument, not even of direct self-interest, but of circumstances. . . . Circumstances are the creators of most men's
opinions."
"`Men come easily to believe that arrangements agreeable to themselves are beneficial to others,' as Dicey observed; and theories of the public good, which turn out on inspection to be an elegant disguise for some particular interest, are as common in international as in national affairs."
"Theories of social morality are always the product of a dominant group which identifies itself with the community as a whole, and which possesses facilities denied to subordinate groups or individuals for imposing its view of life on the community."
"The utopian who dreams that it is possible to eliminate self-assertion from politics and to base a political system on morality alone is just as wide of the mark as the realist who believes that altruism is an illusion and that all political action is based on self-seeking."
I started reading this innocently enough out of a desire to gain a better historical understanding of the interwar period. What I hadn't realized until I started working my way through these pages was that E. H. Carr had far larger goals than the mere enumeration of a series of events leading to war. Carr, in The Twenty Years' Crisis, was consciously attempting to analyze the nascent growth of the study of International Relations and set it on firmer theoretical footing than it had up to that point been on.
The central dialectic of the book is that between "utopianism" and "realism," between "theory" and "practice," between the "intellectual" and the "bureaucrat." To be a utopian is to believe in a theoretical moral order that can one day govern international relations. The utopian tries to bend reality to theory, to establish general principles from which truth will flow.
Utopian thought arose following the break-up of the medieval system with its supposition of a universal ethic and universal political system. An example of nascent utopian thought was Jeremy Bentham's "Utilitarianism" which sought greatest happiness in the greatest number. In this way, public opinion became the general guide to the goodness to any particular thing. Never mind the condition this creed left the unhappy minority in. Laissez-faire had a similar response and simialr results. Even as Utilitarianism and laissez-faire lost favor in Europe, they remained a potent force in the United States and would find themselves reflected in the formation of the League of Nations. The League was an attempt to "apply the principles of Lockeian liberalism to the building of a machinery of international order." It failed on account of "too much rationalism," it attempted to outlaw war with natural results. The force of "international public opinion" was not very strong at all in the end. Even Hitler could say that he "desired peace," all he meant was that he wanted to achieve his goals without war, not that he would forsake his goals for such a purpose.
Utopian thought in international relations was in search of the elusive "harmony of interests," the idea that the "highest interest of the individual and the highest interest of the community naturally coincide." "We now know', wrote Mr Henry Ford as recently as 1930, `that anything which is economically right is also morally right. There can be no conflict between good economics and good morals." The harmony of interests seemed to function well enough so long as global markets seemed endless and there was always new land to support, but by the time of the 20th century the frontiers had begun to close. Suddenly the interest of a single state could more evidently stand in contrast to an "interest of the community" which in point of fact was never the interest of the *whole* communitie i.e. those unfortunate enough to have been born in those places that were ruthlessly exploited. "Biologically and economically, the doctrine of the harmony of interests was tenable only if you left out of account the interest of the weak who must be driven to the wall, or called in the next world to redress the balance of the present." The solution was the introduction of Darwinism, the idea that the interest of the strongest was in fact the interest of community because only the strongest could go on. In this way, what was good for the British Empire or for Germany and so on was in fact the best and was destiny.
The realist critique of all the above utopian dreaming was that, in fact, morality was merely a product of power. The British naturally thought laissez-faire was moral; they stood to benefit as they dominated global production and global trade. The British/French/Americans naturally sought to outlaw war; their empires were the status-quo and they wanted to protect their interests. Had Germany been in the same position as the British Empire, they too would have sought to end war and preserve the spoils of wars past. Thought often follows purpose in international relations. When the French were the enemies of the British, they were hated and accused of numerous things. When the Germans became a greater foe, suddenly the French were defenders of liberty. "Thought is not merely relative to the circumstances and interests of the thinker: it is also pragmatic in the sense that it is directed to the fulfillment of his purposes" Following this line of argument, there is in fact no real morality in international relations, only the prerogatives of the stronger and the revisionist powers.
Carr argues that while utopianism had clearly failed by the onset of WWII, realism is equally repugnant as human beings naturally desire a moral system beyond that which the Athenians demonstrated at Melos. As Carr argues, "The conception of politics as an infinite process seems in the long run uncongenial or incomprehensible to the human mind. Every political thinker who wishes to make an appeal to his contemporaries is consciously or unconsciously led to posit a finite goal."
March 21, 2018
This is an amazing book. Lucidly written and full of gems, wisdom and brilliant quotes. Timely as if it had been published yesterday!
Reading this book has corrected two misconceptions I held:
1. Despite the title this is not a work of history, outlining chronologically the events that led to WWII. Quite the contrary, actually, as it is more a work of history of thought and was finished in 1939.
2. Contrary to what most IR textbooks will lead us to believe, this is not a foundational text of hard-core realism. This is a passionately argued appeal to recognize the need that there always needs to be a balance between realism and utopia, between power and morality.
Carr must have had prophetic powers; so clearly does he foresee future events and trends and so timely are many of his observations. Reading this makes you think that nothing has changed in the past hundred years - amazing!
Reading this book has corrected two misconceptions I held:
1. Despite the title this is not a work of history, outlining chronologically the events that led to WWII. Quite the contrary, actually, as it is more a work of history of thought and was finished in 1939.
2. Contrary to what most IR textbooks will lead us to believe, this is not a foundational text of hard-core realism. This is a passionately argued appeal to recognize the need that there always needs to be a balance between realism and utopia, between power and morality.
Carr must have had prophetic powers; so clearly does he foresee future events and trends and so timely are many of his observations. Reading this makes you think that nothing has changed in the past hundred years - amazing!
March 3, 2020
An international relations classic. Most international relations divide liberal v realism with formerly Marxism and now postmodernism as a third theory.
Carr lumps Marxism and liberalism into "utopianism." Both the individual and class based forms of utopianism fail to understand the way international politics works. Class consciousness did nothing against the Nationalism of 1914, nor did the international economic liberalism. Carr argues that one must balance a realist and "Utopian" view to really understand international relations.
As the world spins out of the post-Cold War neoliberal Washington Consensus, one wonders if it's time to revisit Carr for a grounding in world politics
Carr lumps Marxism and liberalism into "utopianism." Both the individual and class based forms of utopianism fail to understand the way international politics works. Class consciousness did nothing against the Nationalism of 1914, nor did the international economic liberalism. Carr argues that one must balance a realist and "Utopian" view to really understand international relations.
As the world spins out of the post-Cold War neoliberal Washington Consensus, one wonders if it's time to revisit Carr for a grounding in world politics
October 25, 2017
I very much enjoyed reading this book as it truly represents the thought process behind our modern schools of thought regarding international relations theory. Carr is not afraid to criticize his own school of thought, which can be confusing at times but is undoubtedly helpful to getting a wholistic perspective about what explains interactions between nation states.
August 31, 2018
A bit redundant and privileged; Carr really likes his dichotomies. Too dated to be more than a historical curiosity, but it was interesting to see the threads of where modern political thought - especially realism in international relations - came from. The first half dragged on, but the second half was more interesting.
March 21, 2018
Having been taught that Carr was a hard-core "realist" in the past, I was surprised to find Marxist and constructivist undercurrents in the book. The book was clear, concise and engaging for a largely theoretical work
May 2, 2019
This book is an incredibly insightful, and it’s assessment of Utopianism seems impossibly prescient when looking at the struggles of contemporary liberalism. Strongly recommend.
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