This book provides an authoritative account of the controversy about the first great debate in the field of International Relations. Of all the self-images of International Relations, none is as pervasive and enduring as the notion that a great debate pitting idealists against realists took place in the 1940s.

The story of the first great debate continues to structure the contemporary identity of International Relations, yet in recent years revisionist historians have challenged the conventional wisdom that the field experienced such a debate. Drawing on expert contributors working in Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this book includes key participants in the historiographical controversy. The book assembles the existing scholarship and provides a thorough analysis of the status of the first great debate in the history of International Relations. It is an invaluable examination of the causes and future direction of idealist and realist arguments.

International Relations and the First Great Debate will be of interest to students and scholars concerned with the foundations of International Relations.

Contents

Foreword Michael Cox 1. Introduction Brian Schmidt 2. The Myth of the ‘First Great Debate’ Peter Wilson 3. Rereading Early Twentieth-Century IR Theory Andreas Osiander 4. Didthe Realist-Idealist Great Debate Really Happen? Luke Ashworth 5. C.A.W. Manning and the First Great Debate David Long 6. The American National Interest Great Debate Brian Schmidt 7. Myth, Half-Truth, Reality or Strategy? Cameron Thies 8. Where are we now in the Debate about the First Great Debate? Peter Wilson

Author Bio

Brian C. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University.