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The great illusion revisited: the international theory of Norman Angell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Cornelia Navari
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Extract

Norman Angell is a theorist of whom everyone has heard and few take seriously. In the years before the First World War, he had published The Great Illusion, the famous argument which outlined the disutility of war and which appeared to imply that governments would henceforth be restrained in the use of force. It was widely acclaimed and promoted with fervour by proponents of the peace movement. A few months before the outbreak of the First War, Angell had published another major tract predicting that future wars would be less ferocious than past wars. When these predictions proved less than accurate, the luckless theorist became a target for the realist criticism of ‘idealism’; indeed, he became a constant reference point in their defence of the realist position. The label was sufficient to assure that, while frequently referred to, his own ideas should receive scarcely any critical attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 341 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1989

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References

1. Angell was the most frequently cited of the misguided ‘Utopians’ in , Carr'sThe Twenty Years’ Crisis (London, 1946)Google Scholar, followed by the Victorian liberal historian, Buckle, and the ‘last serious exponent’ of modern Utopian thought (p. 25) to issue ‘tedious and sterile’ injunctions on modern international relations (p. 39). See also Carr's review of Angel's ideas in International Affairs, xvi (1937), p. 282.Google Scholar

2. The author found only a handful of scattered references to Angell in journals of the last twenty years, and is grateful to Professor Miller for his reference to the only substantial article: Brescia, L., ‘Norman Angell and the Pacifist Muddle’, University of London, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xlv (1972), pp. 104–121.Google Scholar

3. ‘Interdependence and Power: A Conceptual Analysis’, International Organization, xxxiv (1980), pp. 471–506.Google Scholar

4. Norman Angell and The Futility of War (London, 1986).Google Scholar

5. ‘Capitalism, war and internationalism in the thought of Richard Cobden’, British Journal of International Studies, v (1979), pp. 229–247.Google Scholar

6. Op. cit., p. 478.

7. Miller includes a full bibliography of his writings, for which future Angell scholars will be grateful. Op. cit. in note 4 above.

8. Europe's Optical Illusion (London, 1909).Google Scholar

9. The Foundations of International Polity (London, 1914), p. 17.Google Scholar

10. All the page numbers in the text in this section refer to the 1912 edition of The Great Illusion (London).

11. Miller, op. cit., p. 127.

12. See Peace Theories and the Balkan War (London, 1912)Google Scholar where Angell begins to specify different kinds of war; and Miller, op. cit., pp. 26–8. This also explains why Angell was not a pacifist. See Brescia, L., ‘Norman Angell and the Pacifist Muddle’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xlv (1972), pp. 104–121.Google Scholar

13. See e.g., Robinson, R. and Gallagher, J., ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History Review, vi (1953-1954), pp. 1–15Google Scholar; or Semmell, B., The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 130–202.

14. As collective security became increasingly remote, Angell changed his mind and began to see the empire as the basis of a security community. Thus, it became far from irrelevant that empire existed; see esp. The Defence of the Empire (London, 1937).Google Scholar

15. Cobden's argument was that trade, and hence commercial success, was protected by its competitive edge; and that it was through trade that countries ‘won’ against their rivals, not through war; Cain, op. cit., p. 237. Angell's argument was that war could not secure economic growth and it could not secure growth because it made no contribution to growth.

16. ‘The Cost of Major Wars: the Phoenix Factor’, American Political Science Review, lxxi (1977), pp.1347–1366.Google Scholar

17. Op. cit., note 26, p. 1359.

18. Op. cit., p. 1366.

19. Angell was, however, not the only person who made this mistake. Mahan, his early and influential opponent made the same error. See Paul Kennedy's insightful discussion of Mahan and Mac Kinder, the respective exponents of sea power versus ‘heartland’ theory, in ‘Two Interpretations of British Sea Power’, Strategy and Diplomacy (London, 1983), pp. 48–53.Google Scholar

20. For example, Navari, Cornelia, ‘The Origins of the Nation State’, in Tivey, L., The Nation State (Oxford, 1981).Google Scholar

21. The Fruits of Victory (London, 1921), pp. 34–36.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., p. 61.

23. Ibid., p. xxviii.

24. Ibid., p. 79.

25. Ibid., p. 68.