International Politics and History

Henry E. Spencer

American Political Science Review, 1923, vol. 17, issue 3, 392-403

Abstract: Our present task is one of definition. We are students of political science in its international phase, and we use history as a means. We operate in a marginal area that overlaps two fields, government as that term is usually understood, and the history of international affairs. How shall we bound this marginal area, what are its relations to those other two, more familiar conceptions?We are forced to this study by the World War. Modern history has had an immemse expansion for the reason that a tremendous political event has taken place and the world must know why it happened, the causes as well as the occasions and events. A voluminous literature is appearing on the doings and motives of Great Powers, on the rise of nationalities and their crude strivings, on the remapping of state boundaries, and the development of spheres of economic influence. We welcome, for instance, Mr. Gibbons' recent book on World Politics, a clear and useful summary of the recent history of certain political entities called world powers and their policies. It is the story as he calls it of “the struggle of European nations for world power.” The struggle is there. More power to him in his description of the contestants and the contest. But we view all this as only preparatory for our task.

Date: 1923
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