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³ See, for example, Schmidt, Brian, ‘The historiography of academic International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 20:4 (1994), pp. 349–367 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, Peter, ‘The myth of the first great debate’, Review of International Studies, 24:5 (1998), pp. 1–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ashworth, Lucian M., ‘Where are the idealists in interwar International Relations?’, Review of International Studies, 32:2 (2006), pp. 291–308 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brian Schmidt (ed.), International Relations and the Great First Debate (London: Routledge, 2012).

⁴ This literature is impressively large and growing. Indicative texts include: Lebow, Richard N., The Tragic Vision of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, Michael C., The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Molloy, Seán, The Hidden History of Realism: A Genealogy of Power Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michael C. Williams (ed.), Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans J. Morgenthau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Duncan Bell (ed.), Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

⁵ Ashley, Richard K., ‘The poverty of neorealism’, International Organization, 38:2 (1984), pp. 225–286 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ See, for example, Bain, William, ‘Deconfusing Morgenthau: Moral inquiry and classical realism reconsidered’, Review of International Studies, 26:3 (2000), pp. 445–464 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cozette, Murielle, ‘Reclaiming the critical dimension of realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the ethics of scholarship’, Review of International Studies, 34:1 (2008), pp. 5–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scheuerman, William E., ‘Realism and the Left: the case of Hans J. Morgenthau’, Review of International Studies, 34:1 (2008), pp. 29–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Behr, Hartmut and Heath, Amelia, ‘Misreading in IR theory and ideology critique: Morgenthau, Waltz and neo-realism’, Review of International Studies, 35:2 (2009), pp. 327–349 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rösch, Felix, ‘ Puovoir, puissance, and politics: Hans Morgenthau’s dualistic concept of power’, Review of International Studies, 40:2 (2014), pp. 349–365 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ This one-dimensional depiction is still evident in certain quarters. Elman and Jensen, as an example, write that the classical realist research programme, which can be traced to the publication of The Twenty Years’ Crisis, hones in on the fact that the ‘desire for more power is rooted in the flawed nature of humanity’. That is, ‘states are continuously engaged in a struggle to increase their capabilities’; that for classical realists, ‘international politics can be characterized as evil’; and that ‘classical realism explains conflictual behavior by human failings’. Colin Elman and Michael Jenson (eds), The Realism Reader (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 3.

⁸ E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (reissued edition edited by Michael Cox, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), p. xiii.

⁹ Wilson, Peter, ‘Radicalism for a conservative purpose: the peculiar realism of E. H. Carr’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30:2 (2001), pp. 123–136 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 125).

¹⁰ Booth, Ken, ‘Security in anarchy: Utopian realism in theory and practice’, International Affairs, 67:3 (1991), pp. 527–545 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 530–1.

¹² Howe, Paul, ‘The utopian realism of E. H. Carr’, Review of International Studies, 20:3 (1994), pp. 277–297 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 277).

¹³ Kenealy, Daniel and Kostagiannis, Konstantinos, ‘Realist visions of European Union: E. H. Carr and integration’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41:2 (2012), pp. 221–246 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 241–2.

¹⁵ Linklater, Andrew, ‘The transformation of political community: E. H. Carr, critical theory and International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 23:3 (1997), pp. 321–338 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 324).

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 330–8.

¹⁷ Babík, Milan, ‘Realism as critical theory: the international thought of E. H. Carr’, International Studies Review, 15:4 (2013), pp. 491–514 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 504). See, also, Dunne, Tim, ‘Theories as weapons: E. H. Carr and International Relations’, in Michael Cox (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 217–233 Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Cox, Robert, ‘Social forces, states and world orders: Beyond International Relations theory’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10:2 (1981), pp. 126–155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 131).

¹⁹ Germain, Randall, ‘E. H. Carr and the historical mode of thought’, in Michael Cox (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 322–338 Google Scholar.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 332.

²¹ Bevir, Mark, The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, Ian and Bevir, Mark, ‘Traditions of British international thought’, The International History Review, 36:5 (2014), pp. 823–834 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holthaus, Leonie, ‘L. T. Hobhouse and the transformation of liberal internationalism’, Review of International Studies, 40:4 (2014), pp. 705–727 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leonie Holthaus and Steffek, Jens, ‘Experiments in international administration: the forgotten functionalism of James Arthur Salter’, Review of International Studies, 42:1 (2016), pp. 114–135 Google Scholar. See also Bevir, Mark and Rhodes, Roderick A. W., Interpreting British Governance (London: Routledge, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bevir, Mark, Daddow, Oliver, and Hall, Ian, ‘Introduction: Interpreting British foreign policy’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 15:2 (2013), pp. 164–174 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bevir, Mark, Daddow, Oliver, and Hall, Ian (eds), Interpreting Global Security (London: Routledge, 2014)Google Scholar; Bevir, Mark, Daddow, Oliver, and Schnapper, Pauline, ‘Introduction: Interpreting British European policy’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 53:1 (2015), pp. 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bevir, Mark and Daddow, Oliver, ‘Interpreting foreign policy: National, comparative and regional studies’, International Relations, 29:3 (2015), pp. 273–287 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² Bevir, Logic, p. 158.

²³ Ibid., p. 31.

²⁴ Hall, Ian, ‘The promise and peril of interpretivism in Australian International Relations’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 73:3 (2014), pp. 307–316 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 308).

²⁵ Carr, What is History, p. 31.

²⁶ Bevir, Logic, p. 200.

²⁷ Hall and Bevir, ‘Traditions’, p. 828.

²⁸ Bevir, Logic, p. 203.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 204

³⁰ Bevir et al., ‘Introduction’, p. 167.

³¹ Bevir, Logic, pp. 221–2.

³² Hall and Bevir, ‘Traditions’, p. 829.

³³ Ibid., p. 829.

³⁴ Molloy, The Hidden History of Realism, p. 53.

³⁵ Jones, Charles, E. H. Carr and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 46 Google Scholar.

³⁶ Carr, E. H., ‘An autobiography’, in Michael Cox (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. xii–xxiiGoogle Scholar (p. xix).

³⁷ Carr, ‘Autobiography’, p. xix.

³⁸ George Lloyd and Edward Wood, The Great Opportunity (London: John Murray, 1919). Carr admitted in his biographical statement (see previous footnote) that he was ashamed of the harshness of The Twenty Years’ Crisis. This dilemma potentially explains his evolving thought between these publications.

³⁹ Jonathan Haslam argued that Carr was ‘ultimately indifferent’ to his image as a ‘hard-boiled advocate of Machtpolitik (Power Politics)’ because ‘he recognised the image to be not altogether inaccurate’. Haslam, Jonathan, No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 199–200 Google Scholar. In terms of Carr and the realist and realpolitik traditions, see Hall, Ian, Dilemmas of Decline: British Intellectuals and World Politics, 1945–1975 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), pp. 29–34 Google Scholar; Bew, John, Realpolitik: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 177–181 Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Cadbury Research Library (hereafter CRL), University of Birmingham, Carr Papers, Box 29, Carr’s Appointment Diaries, 1938.

⁴¹ Jones, E. H. Carr and International Relations, p. 60; Hall, Dilemmas of Decline, p. 33; Molloy, Seán, ‘Spinoza, Carr, and the ethics of The Twenty Years’ Crisis ’, Review of International Studies, 39:2 (2013), pp. 251–271 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 261).

⁴² Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, pp. 11–21, 63–88.

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⁴⁵ von Laue, Theodor, Leopold Ranke: The Formative Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), pp. 152–180 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 167.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 169.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 172.

⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 208–15.

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 184

⁵¹ Simms, Brendan and Mulligan, William, ‘Introduction’, in William Mulligan and Brendan Simms (eds), The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 1–14 Google Scholar (p. 1).

⁵² Von Laue, Leopold Ranke, p. 99.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 215.

⁵⁴ CRL, Carr Papers, Box 29, Carr’s Appointment Diaries, 1938.

⁵⁵ Carr, What is History, pp. 8–9.

⁵⁶ Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, pp. 15, 88. On the relationship between Carr and Meinecke, see Haslam, No Virtue, p. 185; Bew, Realpolitik, p. 179.

⁵⁷ Sterling, Richard W., Ethics in a World of Power: The Political Ideas of Friedrich Meinecke (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Simms, Brendan, The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 4–5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Simms, in his formulation, actually includes a fourth factor – crisis and drama. This can be distilled into the first category.

⁵⁹ Carr, E. H., International Relations since the Peace Treaties (London: Macmillan, 1937), pp. 172 Google Scholar, 228.

⁶⁰ Carr, E. H., Britain: A Study of Foreign Policy from the Versailles Treaty to the Outbreak of War (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1939)Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Carr, ‘Autobiography’, p. xix.

⁶² CRL, Carr Papers, Box 27, Carr to Macmillan, 4 December 1939.

⁶³ Wilson, ‘The myth of the first great debate’.

⁶⁴ CRL, Carr Papers, Box 27, Carr to Macmillan, 4 December 1939.

⁶⁵ CRL, Carr Papers, Box 22, E. H. Carr, ‘Review of E. L Woodward’s The Study of international Relations at University’, Times Literary Supplement (24 March 1945).

⁶⁶ Carr, E. H., The Soviet Impact on the Western World (New York: Macmillan, 1947)Google Scholar. In personal correspondence to Arno Mayer, Carr indicated that he wished to ‘devote [his] energies’ to completing his History, adding that he ‘definitely’ did not wish ‘to return to the world of The Twenty Years’ Crisis and all that’. CRL, Carr Papers, Box 27, Carr to Mayer, 30 April 1963.

⁶⁷ Haslam, The Vices of Integrity, ch. 5.

⁶⁸ Carr, Britain; Carr, E. H., German-Soviet Relations between the Two World Wars (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1951)Google Scholar; Carr, E. H., The Twilight of Comintern, 1930–1935 (London: Macmillan, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. H. Carr, The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War (published posthumously, edited by Tamara Deutscher, New York: Pantheon, 1984); CRL, Carr Papers, Box 15, E. H. Carr, The Popular Front, 1935–1938 (unpublished manuscript, prepared by Robert W. Davies). Correspondence from Davies to Deutscher indicates that, unlike The Spanish Civil War, it may have been felt that The Popular Front was too repetitive to stand alone as an ‘unfinished symphony’. CRL, Carr Papers, Box 15, Davies to Deutscher, 30 January 1985; CRL, Carr Papers, Box 15, Davies to Deutscher, 6 March 1985.

⁶⁹ Haslam, No Virtue, pp. 17–18.

⁷⁰ Carr, Twilight, p. 23

⁷¹ Ibid., p. 17. See also Carr, German-Soviet Relations, pp. 89–90.

⁷² Carr, Twilight, pp. 137–8.

⁷³ Ibid., pp. 151–2.

⁷⁴ Carr, Spanish Civil War, p. xviii.

⁷⁵ Ibid., p. 15.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Ibid., pp. 27, 57–9, 61.

⁷⁸ Ibid., p. 50.

⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 84.

⁸⁰ Carr, Popular Front, p. 51.

⁸¹ Ibid., p. 41.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Carr, Twilight, p. 44.

⁸⁴ Ibid.

⁸⁵ Ibid., p. 5.

⁸⁶ Ibid., p. 93.

⁸⁷ Ibid., p. 152.

⁸⁸ Carr, Spanish Civil War, pp. 11–12.

⁸⁹ Ibid., p. 19.

⁹⁰ Ibid., pp. 20–1.

⁹¹ Ibid., p. 34.

⁹² Carr, Popular Front, p. 36.

⁹³ Ibid., p. 131.

⁹⁴ Ibid., p. 128.

⁹⁵ Ibid., pp. 49–50.

⁹⁶ Howe, ‘The utopian realism of E. H. Carr’, pp. 282–4; Jones, E. H. Carr and International Relations, pp. 144–7; Germain, ‘E. H. Carr and the historical mode of thought’, p. 239

⁹⁷ Carr, Conditions of Peace, p. 6; Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, pp. 89–101; Carr, The New Society, p. 14; Carr, What is History?, p. 95.

⁹⁸ Carr, Twilight, p. 122.

⁹⁹ Ibid., p. 124.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., p. 52.

¹⁰¹ Carr, The Spanish Civil War, p. 12.

¹⁰² Ibid., p. 15

¹⁰³ Ibid., p. 14.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid., p. 85.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., pp. 35–6.

¹⁰⁶ In this respect, there is a certain amount of crossover between Carr’s diplomatic histories and the neoclassical realist approach. For this argument with regard to Britain and German-Soviet relations, see Keith Smith, ‘A reassessment of E. H. Carr and the realist tradition: Britain, German-Soviet Relations and neoclassical realism’, International Politics, forthcoming. Although, as will be returned to in the next section, the similarities between Carr’s minor works and the North American realist tradition should not be hastily overdone.

¹⁰⁷ Carr, Twilight, p. 70; Carr, The Spanish Civil War, pp. 20–1; Carr, Popular Front, p. 34.

¹⁰⁸ Haslam, Vices of Integrity, pp. 178–81.

¹⁰⁹ Palan, Ronen P. and Blair, Brook M., ‘On the idealist origins of the realist theory of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 19:4 (1993), pp. 385–399 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 388).

¹¹⁰ Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics, p. 336.

¹¹¹ Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), pp. 127–128 Google Scholar.

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¹¹³ Steele, Brent J., ‘Context and appropriation: the risks, benefits and challenges of reinterpretive expression’, International Politics, 50:6 (2013), pp. 739–752 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁴ Parent, Joseph M. and Baron, Joshua M., ‘Elder abuse: How the moderns mistreat classical realism’, International Studies Review, 13:2 (2011), pp. 193–213 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Ibid., p. 197.

¹¹⁶ Ibid., p. 202. They do of course recognise that what constitutes acceptable knowledge is different across time; and that applying the standards of contemporary ‘political science’ to classical works is unjust: ibid. In raising this ‘classical’ point, namely the conditionality of knowledge, the authors neglect its importance for attempting to create a timeless ideal of the realist tradition.

¹¹⁷ Ibid., p. 203.

¹¹⁸ Ibid., p. 195. See also Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Steven E. Lobell, and Norrin M. Ripsman, ‘Introduction’, in Steven E. Lobell et al. (eds), Neoclassical Realism, The State, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 1–42 (p. 26), fn. 71. For a criticism of this argument, with specific reference to Morgenthau but classical realists more broadly, in terms of discordant epistemology and ontology, see Morgenthau, Hans J., The Concept of the Political, ed. Hartmut Behr, trans. Felix Rösch and Maeva Vidal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁹ Bevir, Logic, p. 201.

¹²⁰ I borrow these terms from Hobson, John M. and Lawson, George, ‘What is history in International Relations?’, Millennium: Journal of International Relations, 37:2 (2008), pp. 415–435 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²¹ Ibid., pp. 421–3.

¹²² The qualifier is used because even the most atheoretical history contains implicit theoretical assumptions. With regard to Ranke’s historiography, Krieger argues that Ranke’s ideas (the independence of politics and history, the search for cause and the concern with vital insight) meant that implicitly he was committed ‘to a theory of history which exalted historically rooted facts over any theory to be drawn from history’. Krieger, Leonard, Ranke: The Meaning of History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1977), p. 23 Google Scholar.

¹²³ Ibid., pp. 425–7.

¹²⁴ Haslam, The Vices of Integrity, p. 194.

¹²⁵ Ibid., p. 195.

¹²⁶ Carr, Twilight, p. viii, emphasis added.

¹²⁷ See, for instance, his employment of Jacques Duclos’s and Palmiro Togliatti’s memoirs, The Spanish Civil War, pp. 2–3, 52–3. Carr had earlier pointed to the inherent subjectivity of memoirs as primary and authentic documents, What is History, pp. 15–17.

¹²⁸ Bevir, Logic, p. 201.

¹²⁹ I am referring specifically to the historically conditioned nature of knowledge and the emancipatory and progressive aspects of critical theory. See Rengger, Nicholas and Thirkell-White, Ben, ‘Still critical after all these years? The past, present and future of critical theory in International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 33:S1 (2007), pp. 3–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 5–7).

¹³⁰ Behr and Heath, ‘Misreading in IR theory’, p. 336.

¹³¹ Evans, Graham, ‘E. H. Carr and International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, 1:2 (1975), pp. 77–97 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 83).

¹³² Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, p. 27.

¹³³ Wilson, Peter, ‘Where are we now in the debate about the first great debate’, in Brian Schmidt (ed.), International Relations and the Great First Debate (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 133–151 Google Scholar (p. 135).

¹³⁴ Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, pp. 208–39; Carr, Nationalism and After, pp. 38–74; Carr, The Conditions of Peace, p. 130.

¹³⁵ Morgenthau, Hans J., American Foreign Policy: A Critical Examination (Methuen & Co.: London, 1951)Google Scholar. American Foreign Policy demonstrated how American geography (its isolated nature) shaped American foreign policy in the early republic (p. 10). It also pointed to the manner in which changes in international relations (bipolarity, British decline, and the decolonisation era) were, by necessity, altering America’s foreign relations (p. 51). Moreover, Morgenthau contended that security was prime (p. 89). There are, of course, areas in the text where Morgenthau departs from the tradition, that is, the impact of technology (pp. 52–3) and the influence of various ideological isms on American foreign policy (pp. 91–138). Nevertheless, as with Carr’s diplomatic histories, there are still connections between American Foreign Policy and the primacy of foreign affairs tradition. For a reading of Morgenthau that sees his work as an unsuccessful attempt to systematise the diplomatic insights of nineteenth-century Europe for an American political science audience, see Guzzini, Stefano, ‘The enduring dilemmas of realism in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations, 10:4 (2004), pp. 533–568 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹³⁷ Erskine, Toni and Lebow, Richard N., ‘Understanding tragedy and understanding International Relations’, in Toni Erskine and Richard N. Lebow (eds), Tragedy and International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2012), p. 3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³⁸ Ibid., p. 6.

¹³⁹ Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics, p. 20.

¹⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 16.

¹⁴¹ Ibid., p. 257.

¹⁴² Carr, ‘Autobiography’, p. xix.

¹⁴³ Carr, Popular Front, pp. 174–5.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 178.

¹⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 179.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid.

¹⁴⁷ Ibid., pp. 184–5

¹⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 187.

¹⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 188.

¹⁵⁰ Ibid.

¹⁵¹ One might conclude that Carr was bowdlerising his own historical past here. Immediately following the Second World War, however, Carr did express doubts over the Munich agreement. On the sincerity assumption on Bevirian interpretivism, see Bevir, Logic, p. 236. Distortion caused by a pro-Soviet attitude may also be evident, see Bevir, Logic, pp. 267–70.

¹⁵² Cited in Cozette, ‘The critical dimension of realism’, p. 16.

¹⁵³ Carr, The Spanish Civil War, p. xvi.