The Twenty Years Crisis Summary

The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the study of International Relations, the book for which E.H. Carr is perhaps most remembered was written just prior to the outbreak of World War Two (WWII). This particular work of Carr’s is primarily a study of the fundamentals of International Relations, which is exemplified especially by the events of the two decades before 1939, the year the book was published. In the Twenty Years Crisis, E.H. Carr explores the interplay of the worldview between Utopians and Realists. Carr’s work examines why the League of Nations and the peace as implemented by the Treaty of Versailles failed, ultimately resulting in WWII. Broken into two sections, the book’s first is of a theoretical approach and

Carr intentionally begins by expressing compelling arguments against what he maintains are misguided and ultimately damaging fundamentals of Utopian thinking so as to convince the reader of a Realist stance. Carr, in my opinion is successful in this regard. Carr critiques Utopianism for opting to ignore how the world really is. A prime example of this is the belief that public opinion can be relied on to judge rightly, that man upholds a moral code that is inherently good, and therefore public opinion is good. To claim that every man will possess a moral code identical to one another is a quintessential demonstration of Utopian’s lack of understanding of reality. Carr emphasises the naivety to base the study of international politics on an imaginary view of how we like to see the world. One such naivety I understood from the text was the establishment of The League of Nations, a collective security instrument. A Utopian concept, Carr is critical of the League due somewhat to his belief that it was trying to generalise world politics between “sixty known states differing widely in size, in power, and in political, economic, and cultural development” (Carr, 1939 p. 30). Another criticism of Carr’s toward the League was the notion that more powerful states would use the League as means to ensure their own interests were

The world in which Carr knew and wrote this book about may have change greatly, however I think one can say the world is once again experiencing s transitional moment where answers no longer suffice, and affirming this books continued relevance. To conclude, the book shows us how Carr was convinced the realities of Global Power and not Utopians normative morality would shape a new international order. Carr’s work can be understood as a critique of Liberalism internationalism or what he referred to as