Studying the International,Serving the Nation: The Origins of International Relations (IR) Scholarship in Germany, 1912–33

This paper examines the dynamics of internationalist and nationalist political thought in the formation of International Relations (IR) scholarship in Germany during the early twentieth century. It argues that while liberal internationalism played a significant role in shaping the discipline, IR scholars were often devout nationalists and worked for their government rather than for international peace. German institutions for the study of IR, like their Anglo-American counterparts, were founded in the aftermath of the First World War. Celebrated during the 1920s as ‘bulwarks of democracy’, they were nationalised by the Nazi government, lost their academic profile and since then have been largely forgotten. This paper explains the origins of IR research at the Institut für Auswärtige Politik, based in Hamburg and directed by Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy, as well as at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik, led by Ernst Jäckh in Berlin. Formally inaugurated in 1923 and 1920 respectively, both institutions drew on pre-war intellectual traditions as well as wartime networks. In light of recent re-appraisals of inter-war IR scholarship in other countries, the German case offers new and important insights into the complex intellectual traditions of what has traditionally been oversimplified as a first ‘great debate’ between ‘idealists’ and ‘realists’.     

A Fleet in Being: The Rise and Fall of Italian Sea Power, 1861–1943

JAMES D. TRACY, ed. The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade 1350–1750. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. vi, 504.

K.N. CHAUDHURI. Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xviii, 477.     

Autonomia and the Political: An Italian Cycle of Contention, 1972–1979

Sidney Tarrow has identified a ‘cycle of contention’ taking place in Italy between 1966 and 1972; Tarrow characterises the left-wing terrorism of the late 1970s as an after-effect of this cycle. However, there was a second cycle of contention between 1972 and 1979, incorporating the left-wing ‘armed struggle’ milieu alongside a group of related mass movements (notably the ‘area of Autonomia’, the ‘movement of 1977’ and the ‘proletarian youth movement’). The second cycle, unlike the first, was met with repression, and with the exclusion of its ideological and tactical innovations from the political mainstream. The difference between the two cycles relates to the role played by the Italian Communist Party, which functioned as a ‘gatekeeper’ in each case; the party's engagement with the first cycle can be characterised as inclusive, while its engagement with the second cycle was unremittingly exclusive.