Angol
This text sets out to challenge a series of beliefs about the origins and nature of the study of international relations (IR). The author argues that it was the liberal tradition, rather than the realists, that were responsible for the development of IR as an academic discipline, and that this liberal tradition has been unfairly dismissed as "idealism" by the bulk of IR textbooks. The book concentrates on four major areas: first, it analyzes the thought of Angell and Mitrany together as the international wing of the "new" social welfare liberalism of the 1890s to the 1950s; it puts strong emphasis on the role of liberal internationalism in the development of IR as an academic discipline; thirdly, it uses contemporary texts to refute the conventional wisdom of the realist-idealist debate; and lastly, it develops a critique of the "new" liberalism of Angell and Mitrany in order to point the way towards a possible social democratic alternative to ideas of world order.
