Abstract
Ian Hall’s chapter on the English school explores an important episode in the development of international relations (IR) theory in the English-speaking worlds, one that showcases the importance of history as the disciplinary matrix for the English School of International Relations. In Britain, Hall argues, IR “bore some of the scars of earlier debates” in the field of history, and in particular those resulting from the multi-pronged reaction against the crisis of progressive visions of history (or the “Whig” conception of history, as it would be popularized by Herbert Butterfield). Hall distinguishes three reactions to the post-First World War unraveling of what he calls “developmental historicism”: a more radical historicism, represented by Collingwood and Oakeshott; a modernist response open to the social sciences and eventually ending in some form of social history; and the synthesis between the previous two attempted by Butterfield, which would define the historiographical profile of the English school, and be taken in different directions by Hedley Bull and Martin Wight.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Some argue “IR” was born as a separate discipline in 1919, with the foundation of the Woodrow Wilson Chair at what was then the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University). But conventional accounts of the emergence of disciplines emphasize their emergence is normally signaled by a professional association, recognized journals, and set of agreed core postulates about the field. Moreover, of the five men who occupied that Wilson Chair from 1919 until 1964, three were historians or had been trained as historians: Charles Webster , E. H. Carr , and Philip Reynolds. The first Professor, A. E. Zimmern, was a distinguished classicist.
- 2.
Their work appeared in books, of course, but also in key British journals like Chatham House’s International Affairs (founded as in 1922) and International Relations (founded in 1960), but also American journals like Foreign Affairs.
- 3.
See especially Collini et al. 1983.
- 4.
- 5.
On this idea, see especially Graham 1997.
- 6.
On the rise of the historical profession and the centrality of the “objectivity question,” see Novick 1988.
- 7.
See, for example, Tawney 1926.
- 8.
While secular history had no shape, it was clear to Butterfield that sacred history did—see Butterfield 1949a, especially 93–129.
- 9.
- 10.
A diplomatic historian, Headlam-Morley occupied the Montague Burton Chair from 1948 to 1970, during which time she obstructed efforts to teach any of the new literature in IR that appeared in the postwar years. The Oxford MPhil in International Relations was created only after she retired (Hall 2012a, b, 10).
- 11.
Some of Wight’s copies of Laski’s books, with dates of purchase neatly inscribed, and marginal notes included, now belong to the author.
- 12.
- 13.
On historical sociology and IR, see Lawson 2006.
- 14.
See especially Guilhot 2011.
References
Adcock, R., Bevir, M., & Stimson, S. (2007). A History of Political Science: How? What? Why. In R. Adcock, M. Bevir, & S. Stimson (Eds.), Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges Since 1880. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bain, W. (2007). Are There Any Lessons of History? The English School and the Activity of Being an Historian. International Politics, 77(5), 513–530.
Bentley, M. (1999). Modern Historiography: An Introduction. London/New York: Routledge.
Bentley, M. (2006). Modernizing England’s Past: English Historiography in the Age of Modernism, 1870–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bentley, M. (2011). The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield: History, Science and God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bevir, M. (2006). Political Studies as Narrative and Science, 1880–2000. Political Studies, 54(3), 583–606.
Bevir, M. (Ed.). (2017). Modernism and the Social Sciences: Anglo-American Exchanges, ca. 1918–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bevir, M., & Hall, I. (2017). International Relations. In M. Bevir (Ed.), Modernism and the Social Sciences Anglo-American Exchanges, ca. 1918–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blaas, P. M. S. (1978). Continuity and Anachronism: Parliamentary and Constitutional Development in Whig Historiography and in the Anti-Whig Reaction Between 1880 and 1930. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Bull, H. (1966). International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach. World Politics, 18(3), 361–377.
Bull, H. (1968). Strategic Studies and Its Critics. World Politics, 20(4), 593–605.
Bull, H. (1972). International Relations as an Academic Pursuit. Australian Outlook, 26(3), 251–265.
Bull, H. (1977). The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. London: Macmillan.
Bull, H. (Ed.). (1984). Intervention in World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Butterfield, H. (1929). The Peace Tactics of Napoleon, 1806–1808. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Butterfield, H. (1931). The Whig Interpretation of History. London: G. Bell & Sons.
Butterfield, H. (1932–1933). History and the Marxian Method. Scrutiny, 1, 339–355.
Butterfield, H. (1940). The Statecraft of Machiavelli. London: G. Bell & Sons.
Butterfield, H. (1944a). The Study of Modern History. London: G. Bell & Sons.
Butterfield, H. (1944b). The Englishman and His History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Butterfield, H. (1949a). Christianity and History. London: G. Bell and Sons.
Butterfield, H. (1949b). The Origins of Modern Science, 1300–1800. London: G. Bell & Sons.
Butterfield, H. (1949c). How Far and Should the Subject of International Relations be Included in the Curriculum for Undergraduate Students of History. Butterfield MS 130/2, Cambridge University Library.
Butterfield, H. (1950). The Tragic Element in Modern International Conflict. Review of Politics, 12, 147–164.
Butterfield, H. (1951a). History and Human Relations. London: Collins.
Butterfield, H. (1951b). The Scientific Versus the Moralistic Approach in International Affairs. International Affairs, 27(3), 411–422.
Butterfield, H. (1955). Man on His Past: The Study of the History of Historical Scholarship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Butterfield, H. (1959). Notes of the Discussion of Martin Wight’s “Why Is There No International Theory?”. British Committee Papers, 1, Royal Institute of International Affairs Library, Chatham House.
Butterfield, H. (1968). Untitled Paper Given at Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, 1–7 April, Butterfield Papers, 109/2, Cambridge University Library.
Butterfield, H. (1971). The Discontinuities Between Generations in History: Their Effect on the Transmission of Political Experience (The Rede Lecture 1971). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Butterfield, H., & Wight, M. (Eds.). (1966). Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Buzan, B. (2001). The English School: An Underexploited Resource in IR. Review of International Studies, 27(3), 471–488.
Buzan, B. (2004). From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buzan, B. (2014). An Introduction to the English School of International Relations. Cambridge: Polity.
Buzan, B., & Lawson, G. (2015). The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buzan, B., & Little, R. (2000). International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carr, E. H. (1939). The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to International Relations. London: Macmillan.
Chiaruzzi, M. (2016). Martin Wight on Fortune and Irony in Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Clark, I. (1989). The Hierarchy of States: Reform and Resistance in the International Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, I. (1999). Globalization and International Relations Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, I. (2005). Legitimacy in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, I. (2007). International Legitimacy and World Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, I. (2011). Hegemony in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coll, A. (1985). The Wisdom of Statecraft: Sir Herbert Butterfield and the Philosophy of International Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Collingwood, R. G. (1942). The New Leviathan, or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism. London: Oxford University Press.
Collingwood, R. G. (1944 [1939]). An Autobiography. Harmondsworth: Pelican.
Collini, S., Winch, D., & Burrow, J. (1983). That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Copeland, D. C. (2003). A Realist Critique of the English School. Review of International Studies, 29(3), 427–441.
den Otter, S. (2007). The Origins of a Historical Political Science in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. In R. Adcock, M. Bevir, & S. Stimson (Eds.), Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges Since 1880 (pp. 37–65). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Donelan, M. (Ed.). (1978). The Reason of States: A Study in International Political Theory. London: Allen & Unwin.
Dunne, T. (1998). Inventing International Society: A History of the English School. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Fair, J. D. (1992). Harold Temperley: A Scholar and Romantic in the Public Realm. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Finnemore, M. (2001). Exporting the English School? Review of International Studies, 27(3), 509–513.
Franco, P. (2004). Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Graham, G. (1997). The Shape of the Past. New York: Oxford University Press.
Guilhot, N. (2011). The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hall, I. (2002). History, Christianity and Diplomacy: Sir Herbert Butterfield and International Relations. Review of International Studies, 28(4), 719–736.
Hall, I. (2003). Challenge and Response: The Lasting Engagement of Arnold J. Toynbee and Martin Wight. International Relations, 17(3), 389–404.
Hall, I. (2005). The Art and Practice of a Diplomatic Historian: Sir Charles Webster, 1886–1961. International Politics, 42(4), 470–490.
Hall, I. (2006). The International Thought of Martin Wight. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, I. (2009). The Realist as Moralist: Lewis Namier’s International Thought. In I. Hall & L. Hill (Eds.), British International Thinkers from Hobbes to Namier (pp. 227–246). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, I. (2012a). Dilemmas of Decline: British Intellectuals and World Politics, 1945–1975. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Hall, I. (2012b). The “Toynbee Convector”: The Rise and Fall of Arnold J. Toynbee’s Anti-Imperial Mission to the West. The European Legacy, 17(4), 455–469.
Hall, I. (2014). “Time of Troubles”: Arnold J. Toynbee’s Twentieth Century. International Affairs, 90(1), 23–36.
Hall, I. (2017). The History of International Thought and International Relations Theory: From Context to Interpretation. International Relations, 31(3), 241–260
Iggers, G. G. (2005). Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (new ed.). Hanover: Wesleyan University Press.
Inglis, F. (2009). History Man: The Life of R. G. Collingwood. Princeton/Oxford, Princeton University Press.
Jackson, R. (2000). The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, R. (2005). Classical and Modern Thought in International Relations: From Anarchy to Cosmopolis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
James, A. (1986). Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society. London: Allen & Unwin.
Jeffery, R. (2008). Australian Realism and International Relations: John Anderson and Hedley Bull on Ethics, Religion and Society. International Politics, 45(1), 52–71.
Jones, R. E. (1981). The English School of International Relations: A Case for Closure. Review of International Studies, 7(1), 1–13.
Jones, C. (1997). Carr, Mannheim, and a Post-positivist Science of International Relations. Political Studies, 45(2), 232–246.
Jones, C. (1998). EH Carr and International Relations: A Duty to Lie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaplan, M. (1966). The New Great Debate: Traditionalism vs. Science in International Relations. World Politics, 19(1), 1–20.
Keal, P. (2003). European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keene, E. (2008). The English School and British Historians. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 37(2), 381–393.
Laski, H. J. (1940). On the Study of Politics, in his The Danger of Being a Gentleman and Other Essays. London: Basic Books.
Laski, H. J. (1951). An Introduction to Politics (Rev. ed.). London: Allen & Unwin.
Lawson, G. (2006). The Promise of Historical Sociology in International Relations. International Studies Review, 8(3), 397–423.
Linklater, A. (1982). Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations. London: Macmillan.
Little, R. (2009). History, Theory and Methodological Pluralism in the English School. In C. Navari (Ed.), Theorising International Society (pp. 78–103). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Manning, C. A. W. (1962). The Nature of International Society. London: G. Bell & Sons.
Mayall, J. (1990). Nationalism and International Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McNeill, W. H. (1989). Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Namier, L. (1929). The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III. London: Macmillan.
Namier, L. (1948). Diplomatic Prelude, 1938–9. London: Macmillan.
Navari, C. (2000). Internationalism and the State in the Twentieth Century. London/New York: Routledge.
Navari, C. (Ed.). (2009). Theorising International Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicolson, H. (1937). British Public Opinion and Foreign Policy. Public Opinion Quarterly, 1(1), 53–63.
Northedge, F. S. (1976). The International Political System. London: Faber.
Novick, P. (1988). That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oakeshott, M. (1991 [1962]). Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Oakeshott, M. (1995 [1933]). Experience and Its Modes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oakeshott, M. (1999). On History and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
O’Sullivan, L. (2003). Oakeshott on History. Exeter: Imprint Academic.
Purnell, R. (1973). The Society of States: An Introduction to International Politics. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Schwarzenberger, G. (1951). Power Politics: A Study of International Society (2nd ed.). New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
Sharp, P. (2003). Herbert Butterfield, the English School and the Civilizing Virtues of Diplomacy. International Affairs, 79(4), 855–878.
Smith, T. W. (1999). History and International Relations. London/New York.
Stapleton, J. (2008). Modernism, the English Past, and Christianity: Herbert Butterfield and the Study of History. The Historical Journal, 51(2), 547–557.
Suganami, H. (1983). The Structure of Institutionalism: An Anatomy of British Mainstream International Relations. International Relations, 7(5), 2363–2381.
Tawney, R. H. (1926). Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co..
Taylor, A. J. P. (1945). The Course of German History. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Temperley, H. (1925). The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822–1827: England, the Neo-Holy Alliance and the New World. London: G. Bell & Sons.
Toynbee, A. J. (1934–60). A Study of History (Vol. 12). London: Oxford University Press.
Toynbee, A. J. (1953). The World and the West. London: Oxford University Press.
Tractenberg, M. (2009). The Craft of International History: A Guide to Method. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vigezzi, B. (2005). The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics (1954–1985): The Rediscovery of History. Milan: Edizioni Unicopli.
Vincent, R. J. (1974). Nonintervention and International Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Watson, A. (1982). Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States. London: Eyre Methuen.
Watson, A. (1992). The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. London/New York: Routledge.
Webster, C. (1923). The Study of International Politics. London: Humphrey Milford.
Webster, C. (1925). The Study of Foreign Policy (Nineteenth Century). American Historical Review, 30, 728–737.
Wheeler, N. (2000). Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wight, M. (1946). Power Politics (Looking Forward Pamphlet 8). London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Wight, M. (1950a). What Is International Relations?, Wight MS 112, British Library of Political and Economic Sciences, London.
Wight, M. (1950b). History and Judgment: Butterfield, Niebuhr and the Technical Historian. The Frontier: A Christian Commentary on the Common Life, 1(8), 301–314.
Wight, M. (1954, November 17). Christianity and the Philosophy of History, Wight MS, British Library of Political and Economic Sciences, London.
Wight, M. (1955). What Makes a Good Historian? The Listener, 53(1355), 283–284.
Wight, M. (1961). Notes on Michael Howard’s “Sovereignty,” 15 April, British Committee Papers, 5, Royal Institute of International Affairs Library, Chatham House.
Wight, M. (1963). The Place of Classics in a New University. Didaskalos: The Journal of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers, 1(1), 27–36.
Wight, M. (1964). European Studies. In D. Daiches (Ed.), The Idea of a New University: An Experiment at Sussex (pp. 100–119). London: Andre Deutsch.
Wight, M. (1966a). Why Is There No International Theory? In H. Butterfield & M. Wight (Eds.), Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics (pp. 17–34). London: George Allen & Unwin.
Wight, M. (1966b). The Balance of Power. In H. Butterfield & M. Wight (Eds.), Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of International Politics (pp. 149–175). London: George Allen & Unwin.
Wight, M. (1977). In H. Bull (Ed.), Systems of States. Leicester/London: Leicester University Press and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Wight, M. (1990). International Theory: The Three Traditions, edited by B. Porter and G. Wight. Leicester/London: Leicester University Press and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Wight, M. (n.d., probably mid-1950s). History and the Study of International Relations, Wight MSS 112, British Library of Political and Economic Sciences, London.
Wilson, P. (2001). Radicalism for a Conservative Purpose: The Peculiar Realism of EH Carr. Millennium, 30(1), 123–136.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hall, I. (2019). The English School’s Histories and International Relations. In: Schmidt, B., Guilhot, N. (eds) Historiographical Investigations in International Relations. The Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78036-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78036-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78035-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78036-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)