Product Description

E.H. Carr's "Twenty Years' Crisis" is a classic work in international relations. Published in 1939, on the eve of World War II, it was immediately recognized by friend and foe alike as a defining work in the fledgling discipline. The author was one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals of the 20th century. The issues and themes he develops in this book 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, its main themes and contemporary relevance. Written with the student in mind, it offers a guide to understanding a complex, but crucial text.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32119 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 291 pages

About the Author
E.H CARR - born in 1892, Carr joined the foreign office in 1916 and worked in Paris and Riga. He was subsequently Assistant Adviser on League of Nations Affairs, First Secretary in the Foreign Office and, for one year during the War, director of Foreign Publicity for the Ministry of Information. His first academic post was as Wilson Professor of International Politics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and at the same time he was Assistant Editor of the Times. From 1953-55 he was tutor in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, but in 1955 he moved to Trinity College, Cambridge after being elected a Fellow of the college. He died in 1982. - MICHAEL COX is Professor of International Politics at University of Wales, Aberystwyth and editor of the Review of International Studies. His most recent publications include The Eighty Years' Crisis: International Relations 1919-1999 (1998) and E.H. Carr: A Critical Reappraisal (2000) .

Customer Reviews

The Twenty Years' Crisis
This book can be summed up in one word, "elegent". The argument put forward by Carr is as important today as it was in 1939. He mercilessly cuts through Inter-war Idealism and lays its many flaws open for the reader to see. Carr then moves on to put forward his theory of International Relations which ultimately evolved into the Realist school of thought (which arguably is still to this day the most important school of thought in International Relations).

If this was all Carr did then his book would be a masterpiece. However he does more and in my opinion achieves more than any other theorist from the realist school of thought. Although he criticises Inter-war Idealism he is still wise enough to accept that it does have important ideals that we should strive for in International Relations. Therefore The Twenty Years Crisis can in some ways be seen as a bridgeing book that takes the best aspects from Inter-war Idealism and joins them to his Realist theory. This is why I believe the book can be described as elegent and why any serious student of International Relations should read this book.

Concise and brilliant but with flaws like all people and books
This book is only around 200 pages long but expresses exactly what the author meant concisely and with style.

While it has been seen as a realist attack on idealism Carr actually sees realism and idealism as two concepts - the first epitomised by the bureaucrat who takes existing power structures into account in decision making and sees the differences between each case but has no interest in changing the system and no motivation to , the second epitomised by philosophers like Woodrow Wilson who are concerned only with the ideal they wish to achieve, treat every case the same as one to be changed to the ideal and don't pay enough attention to how they can get from the existing power structure to the new one they aspire to create.

Carr says pure realism would lead to stagnation with no-one having the motivation to make any change for better or worse - while pure idealism will always fail to achieve its aims because of its utopianism.

His solution is a balance between the two - having ideals to aim at but also taking into account existing power stuctures and thinking about how they can be changed to achieve ideals.

His analysis of the liberal theory of 'the harmony of interests' is interesting and pretty much an attempt to apply Marx's ideas of the 'false consciousness' of the 'proletariat' to international politics to explain why governments of countries harmed by the existing system often believe it is in their interests as much as the dominant states' interests - and why dominant states end up believing that what is in their interest is in every country's interest despite the inevitable conflicts of interest in reality.

The flaw in his argument is to personify states and assume that equality among states is the same as equality among individual people to the extent that he believed Germany and Italy should be allowed to have European and North African empires to match the British and French empires as a means of avoiding war.

This ignored the obvious unfairness and brutality of all empires towards the people of their colonies.

Carr's advocacy of a policy of appeasement also led to many shunning him at the time he wrote 'The Twenty Years' Crisis' and even today. To be fair to Carr the holocaust was not public knowledge in Britain in 1939. It's impossible to know what he would have written had he known about it - but very possible that it would have changed his mind.

His main point was that the status quo suited the countries which won the first world war and imposed an international system which benefitted them - free trade being 'the paradise of the economically strong' but not of countries with weaker economies which could not compete in it.

It might well be that if this unrestricted free trade regime hadn't been imposed the great depression and the surge in support for fascism and communism caused by mass unemployment could have been avoided.

Few if any people or books are perfect and 'The Twenty Years' Crisis' remains a masterpiece and relevant to this day despite any flaws in it or E.H. Carr.

Foundational Text on IR
Edward Carrs tretise is the foundational text for anyone studying IR from a western perspective. Cars gives the philosophical foundations behind the different schools of thought in IR academia. A must for IR stduents.