Verified Document

E.H. Carr's The Twenty Years Book Review

Rather, he does present a clear case for including underlying moral tones in how international relations are constructed and executed. Yet, these only have a certain part to play. Exaggerating that portion through unrealistic utopian ideology proves to lead to the failure of the peace attempts during the twenty years Carr describes in crisis. In this, he is also criticizing the other end of the spectrum in terms of utopian ideology. Carr aims to discredit some of the misconceptions brought about by a more extreme realistic approach that was also failing to provide progressive results. Political philosophies are often in order to gain power over other nations. Thus, they can be very easily molded into oppressive or aggressive strategies if not restrained by some sort of moral guidance. Carr believed that strategies born out of this self serving pragmatic approach were failing just as much as their utopian counterparts.

Carr's personal belief is that international politics are heavily dependent on the presence of power structures and how they interact within an international context. Methods of power include military, economic, ideological, and judicial. By manipulating the balance between these structures of power, more efficient strategies in international relations can take shape. Essentially, Carr was advocating the balance of these power structures with an appropriate, but realistic, moral foundation makes for the best environment to facilitate cooperation...

He presents his argument in a progressive structure, offering criticism of current systems but with his own recommendations for change. It is impressive in how he aims to secure an autonomous role for international relations. This was done in order to better preserve and promote greater efficiency in working with a wider broad of groups in a more globalized context. Carr's influence did help shape international relations as a separate concept, one that is supposed to be devoid of certain national or regional biases. These influences can be seen in the current construct of many international relations, like that of the United Nations. It is also interesting to see Carr invoke the Aristotelian philosophy of the golden mean. This is where everything is in perfect balance based on a moderation of elemental influences. This makes sense, as Carr clearly illustrates how practices on the extreme ends of the spectrum fail to address the real problems in an efficient way. Blending the two extremes in a flexible and multi-faceted approach is clearly better suited for such a complicated endeavor. However, the work was written right before World War I hit. Thus, read in a modern context, it is lacking some of the relevance today because international relations have since been so defined by the events and consequences of the war. Still, Carr's argument proves agreeable and well structured.

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Carr's the Twenty Years Crisis
Words: 777 Length: 2 Document Type: Book Report

Edward Carr is seen to this day one of the most important theoreticians of the study of international relations. Despite the fact that his work has been written before the start of the Second World War, he was among the first scholars and analysts to take into account the theory of international relations as a paradigm and afterwards as a science. One of his most important works in this area and

International Security With the End
Words: 2544 Length: 7 Document Type: Essay

In a brief homage to neo-Marxism, critical theory highlights the way in which human security, typically in the hands of leaders, can be used as a global tool to secure economic and political issues, and to justify pre-emptive intervention when the balance is in question (Cox 1992). Being such a broad approach, and taking into account population geography, economics, history, feminist studies, multi-cultural sociology, etc., the theory is more of

Worster's Dust Bowl: Is It
Words: 3168 Length: 10 Document Type: Research Proposal

S. history. He has held teaching appointments at Brandeis University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Maine. He serves on the boards of several environmental organizations. His publications include An Unsettled Country: Changing Landscapes of the American West (1994); The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (1993); Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (1977); and A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley

Autonomy Metaphor: Men As Leaves
Words: 4962 Length: 15 Document Type: Term Paper

(Leaves, 680) Similarly Whitman informs us: Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun…there are millions of suns left, You shall no longer take things at second or third hand…nor look through the eyes of the dead…nor feed on the specters in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me.

Female Sex Offenders
Words: 2445 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

Female Sex Offenders There have been extensive studies regarding child sexual abuse, however, there have been minimal attention paid to sexual abuse by females (Denov 2001). During the last twenty years there has been a rise of interest in the issue of child sexual abuse with most research concluding that sexual offending is an exclusively male activity (Denov 2001). In fact, early research on sexual offenders suggested that sexual offending among

Asperger Syndrome Asperger's Disorder --
Words: 10627 Length: 33 Document Type: Research Paper

The AS person has often spent an inordinate amount of time fixated on one particular (often peculiar) topic, and when that person is in a social environment, he or she tends to ramble on about the topic and that one-sided rambling is more important to that AS person than any other activity in a social setting, Woodbury-Smith writes on page 4. According to Woodbury-Smith, as the AS person gets older,

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now