Torbjorn L. Knutsen: 1
Cowboy Philosophy?
A Centenary Appreciation of Norman Angell’s Great Illusion
ABSTRACT
Norman Angell wrote in his famous book, The Great Illusion, that whatever warfare was in
the past, it is now a thing without glamour or charm. This claim is sustained by two main
arguments. The first hinges on the concept of “interdependence”, the second on
“adaptation”. Neither concept was original; both were used in scholarly IR discussions
before Angell’s time. The first was anchored in liberal trade theory (and is still well
known); the second flowed from Darwin’s theory of evolution (but is today nearly
forgotten). In addition, The Great Illusion is supported by a third argument: a particular
view of the relationship between language and politics (an argument that has been revived
in recent decades). When push comes to shove, Angell’s eponymous “great illusion” was a
linguistically-based phenomenon: It is an anachronistic outlook artificially kept alive by
obsolete political language. This article explores the intersection of these three arguments;
and it does this with an eye to historical context and to the biography of the author. It
argues that these three arguments were given a peculiar cast by Angell’s experiences in
America’s Wild West. That Angell’s chequered past as homesteader, cowboy, prospector
and jack-of-all trades shaped the argument of The Great Illusion – whose discussions of the
causes of war and the preconditions for peace, in turn, exerted a formative influence on the
emergence of the scholarly study of IR.
When Daniel Drezner (2009) made a top-ten list of the worst books ever in International
Relations (IR), he put Norman Angell’s The Great Illusion from 1910 as number one. This
book he explained, was “spectacularly wrong” and had exerted a bad influence on the
scholarly study of International Relations (IR). It is true that the book was influential – judged
by its astronomic sales (it passed 2 million copies before the outbreak of war in 1914). But
was it “spectacularly wrong”? 2
The main message of The Great Illusion is that statesmen and scholars were enthralled
by erroneous ideas: viz., that military power gave wealth and security to a country and that
war could be employed as a foreign-policy tool. These are delusional claims, argues Angell.
They are also very dangerous. For modern international relations are played out in a world
where trade had expanded and states had become deeply dependent on each other. Modern
1
Torbjorn L. Knutsen is Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. Comments on this paper are very welcome. [email protected]
2
Bad books, Drezner (2009) explains, must be understood as either written “by prominent international
policymakers that put you to sleep”, or books that have been “influential in some way but also spectacularly
wrong, leading to malign consequences”. Since Mr Angell was not a prominent policymaker, the reason for
ranking his book so dishonourably must rest on its erroneous message and noxious influence.
1
industrialism has made states so interdependent that if one industrial state were to attack
another, the economic system on which they both depended would unravel and they would
both suffer economic disaster in addition to battlefield destruction, Angell warned. That
warning, written in the opening decade of the twentieth century, hardly seems “spectacularly
wrong”; it seems rather quite prophetic.
Why, then, do so many good scholars still see The Great Illusion as a mistaken analysis
and a “bad book”? One answer is that they disagree with its basic thesis of economic
interdependence, as did e.g. admiral Mahan (1912) in his scathing review. Another answer is
that the book’s message has, as Drezner correctly notes, been “widely misinterpreted” – that
its argument has been misunderstood to mean that war is now impossible and its analysis
misconstrued as belonging to a naïve and muddle-headed “utopianism” (Carr 2001
[1939]:43).
These two answers will not be pursued here; they have been explored elsewhere – e.g.
by Angell (1912; 1951) himself and, more recently, by Navari (1989), Long (1995), Osiander
(1998), Ashworth (2006) and others. The present article has other aims. One is to identify the
logic of The Great Illusion and place it in historical context. Another is to assess its influence
on the early study of IR. Few occasions could better justify these aims than the centenary of
the book’s publication – and the continued confusion that surrounds its argument.
Other authors have had similar aims. Miller (1986), Navari (1989), de Wilde (1989;
1991), Ashworth (1999), Ceadel (2000) and many others have mapped the argument of The
Great Illusion. However, they have tended to focus narrowly on its central theory of
interdependence and omitted another theory which also sustains its argument: the theory of
adaptation.
Other authors have read The Great Illusion in context and shown how it affected the
development of scholarly IR in its earliest years. Long (1995), Schmidt (1998; 2002),
Osiander (1998), Ashworth (2006; 2008), Knutsen (2008) and others note that Angell’s book
sparked debates about war and peace in many countries, stimulated anti-war movements,
fuelled public discussions on the causes of war and the preconditions for peace, and even
made statesmen and diplomats sit up and listen– developments that, in turn, helped pave the
way for a more systematic study of international relations. Again, these authors have tended
to play up the liberal argument of interdependence and omit the influence that theories of
adaptation played in these formative debates.
This article argues that two theoretical traditions sustain The Great Illusion: a liberal
tradition of interdependence and a Darwinian tradition of adaptation. In addition it directs
2
attention towards a third argument: An effort to understand the effects of language on politics.
This argument is arguably the most original contribution of the book. It directly sustains the
core notion of the “great illusion”. Yet, it is largely neglected in the literature on both Angell
and early IR.
The Great Illusion, then, hinges on three claims. First that the advent of industrialism
encouraged an interdependence among states that altered the conditions of international
politics and raised the stakes of war. Second that most people did not adapt mentally to this
new situation. Third that most observers – statesmen, scholars and the general public –
continued to discuss world events in a traditional, outdated language that conserved the
power-based outlooks of earlier times. As a result, they were victims of an obsolete world
view – of the eponymous “great illusion”.
This article, examines these three claims – this conceptual triquetra of interdependence,
adaptation and the language of politics. First, it offers a biographical sketch of the author
followed by a synopsis of the book and a map of its argument. Second, it shows the ways in
which the book draws on turn-of-the-century theories to bolster its arguments and pack a
powerful punch against advocates of power politics – i.e. on what subsequent authors would
refer to as Realpolitik or Realism. 3 Third, the article discusses the philosophy of language that
supports the argument. It concludes with the claim that Angell’s view of international affairs –
his interdependence theory, his evolutionary view of world affairs as well as his philosophy of
language – was affected not only by reading liberal classics and Darwin, but also by his
variegated experiences in the anarchical society of the American Wild West.
The Author and His Book
Ralph Norman Angell Lane was born in 1872. He was quick and precocious and read
voraciously. Upon completing elementary school he went abroad. First to France; then to
Switzerland where he spent a year at the University of Geneva. He immigrated to America in
1890. He set himself up as a homesteader and worked at different jobs – among them cattleherding, prospecting and book-keeping – before ending up as a newspaper reporter on The
San Francisco Chronicle and, later, on The St Louis Globe-Democrat (Miller 1986:2ff).
In 1898, when the Spanish-American War broke out, he was surprised to note that so
many Americans were pleased by the prospect of a scrap with colonial Spain. This surprise
3
Angell does not label the carriers of the great illusion. He quotes several individual politicians and pundits and
distills from their quotes a least common denominator. However, he does not unify the carriers of the “great
illusion” by a general label like “power politics”, Realpolitik or “Realism”.
3
planted in his mind a question that he would wrestle with in several subsequent books –
among them The Great Illusion. So before discussing the book’s argument, it is useful to note
the origin and evolution this question.
The Author
Disillusioned with the “simple life” and with America’s belligerent attitudes, Ralph Lane
returned to Europe. He became the editor of an English-language newspaper in Paris. Soon he
wrote for French and American papers as well: He wrote for the French Éclair about
American attitudes towards the war with Spain; and he wrote for American papers about the
French attitudes towards the controversial Captain Dreyfus. When armed conflict erupted out
in South Africa, he wrote for French papers about the escalating Boer War – and discussed the
ways in which it fanned British sentiments of patriotism.
In 1901 Lane began to address more systematically the phenomenon which would
constitute a thick, red thread through his writings for the next half century: the way in which
passions and myths undermine people’s common sense. With his journalistic triangular traffic
as a vantage point, he wrote a comparative study of popular reactions to the Boer War, the
Dreyfus affair and the Spanish-American War: Patriotism under Three Flags (1903). The
book explored the irrational forces which might undermine people’s common sense and
rational judgment. Most people are often “completely blind to what ought to be self-evident,
to simple facts of the external world beneath our noses. We are thus capable … of walking
into an abyss while denying its existence”, wrote Angell (1951: 105).
Patriotism under Three Flags had a philosophical undertone of anti-empiricism (Moses
and Knutsen 2008: ch 8): that most people are not guided through life by facts and rational
analysis but by interpretations and opinions that surround the facts and by the language that
encases the analysis. The young author was so excited by this insight that he toyed with the
thought of dropping journalism to become a freelance philosopher. But he changed his mind
when the publisher informed him of the book’s disappointing sales figures. Instead of writing
books on philosophy, he accepted an offer from Alfred Harmsworth to manage the Parisbased edition of The Daily Mail.
His job at The Mail gave Lane a stellar location from which he could observe modern
journalism and its relations with the modern public. 4 He applied these new observations to his
4
Alfred Harmsworth was a journalistic trendsetter whose innovations had brought him enormous success.
Whereas traditional papers wrote for the upper classes of English society, Harmsworth had a different – and
4
old question. He wrestled with the inter-relationship between the popular press and its mass
audience and developed insights into the forces that shaped (and twisted) people’s perceptions
of the external world.
He pursued some of those ideas in a book which was published in 1908, Europe’s
Optical Illusion. It continued the discussion from Patriotism under Three Flags of how myths
and emotions eroded people’s rational analysis. But, he cast his net more broadly: Ordinary
people are not the only ones who are swayed by irrational forces in politics, the governing
elites are equally affected he argued. Also, he added an economic aspect to the argument.
Great changes had taken place in international trade and in the “delicate interdependence of
our credit-based finance” noted Angell (1910: 32). Western statesmen, he added, did not seem
to be aware of the immensity of these recent changes. They were still prisoners of old and
obsolete ways of thought.
Europe’s Optical Illusion was not published under the name of Ralph Lane, but under
the author’s less-frequently used middle names: Norman Angell. The book sold reasonably
well, but it received a curious reception. Its simple argument commonly misconstrued: The
book’s message was twisted and bent out of shape, so that the public seemed to gather from
the book the notion that war had now become impossible. There were authors who argued
this, 5 but Angell was not among them. His argument was more complex.
In 1909 Angell was increasingly puzzled that his argument was so misunderstood. In
order to remove all misinterpretation, he dipped his pen anew and began another book in
order to spell out his arguments clearly, crisply and with such careful precision that no
misunderstanding would be possible. The result was The Great Illusion: The Relation of
Military Power to National Advantage.
potentially much larger – audience in mind. His aim, he explained, was to “give the common man – or woman –
the mental food suited to his, or her, circumstances” (Angell 1951:120). Whereas London’s respectable papers
reported on parliamentary debates and the state of the economy for a dwindling public of gentleman’s clubs,
Harmsworth wrote for the expanding audience of industrial workers, dockers and mill-girls. Harmsworth
impressed upon Lane that most people are less interested in parliamentary debates than in the three things that
are always news: “health things, sex things and money things” (idem). As one respectable papers after another
went bankrupt around the turn of the century, Harmsworth bought them up, introduced his own kind of
journalism and made the newspapers blossom. Thus Harmsworth catapulted himself into fame and great fortune.
He imparted his journalistic maxims to the young Ralph Lane and then sent him to Paris to manage The Daily
Mail, one of Harmsworth’s English-language papers in France.
5
President David S. Jordan of Leland Stanford University, for example, made a speech in 1910 where he
claimed that “Future war is impossible because the nations cannot afford it” (Nye 2009:5). The burdens of
militarism are exhausting even in a time f peace; in war it would lead to overwhelming bankruptcy, argued
Jordan. Angell’s argument, which hinged on the notion of interdependence, was different – and more
sophisticated.
5
The Great Illusion was published in 1910 and became a great publishing success. This
caused him to quit journalism and launch a new career as a pundit, a writer and an anti-war
activist. During the course of a long and productive life, Norman Angell wrote some 40 books
on the causes of war and the precondition for peace. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in
1933.
It is, however, The Great Illusion that is associated with his name. This book has
secured him a place at the hall of fame of the world’s foremost International Relations
scholars. The rest of this article examines its argument more closely. It lays out it
interdependence theory, identifies its Darwinian taproot and discusses the origins – putting a
special emphasis on the author’s teen-age experiences as a toiling homesteader in the
American West.
The Book: Its Structure and Argument
What was it about The Great Illusion that made it such a run-away best-seller? Part of the
answer lies in the perfect match between its structure and its argument.
The Great Illusion consists of three parts – two cases (as Angell calls them) and a
conclusion. The two cases are anchored in the social-sciences – in Economics and
Anthropology in particular. The conclusion summarizes the argument, assesses its
implications and proposes a more sensible foreign-policy agenda for Great Britain and the
other industrial countries of the world.
The Economic Case
The first part of the book, entitled “The Economics of the Case”, explains why war no longer
pays. In the wake of the industrial revolution, the states of the world expanded trade and
financial dealings with each other and developed more finely the international division of
labor. As a consequence, the industrial states of the world became, in Angell’s term,
“interdependent”.
Angell begins this part by addressing the mounting fear in Britain of a German attack.
This fear is real, Angell avers, in spite of the fact that the Germans have nothing to gain by
such an attack. In fact, they have everything to lose. Germany’s miraculous growth during the
final decade of the 19th century was fuelled by British investments. It was founded on British
capital. If the Germans were to attack Great Britain, they would not only hurt the British
6
economy, they would unleash a deep economic crisis in both countries and undermine
Britain’s as well as Germany’s own prosperity and power.
The book’s message is that the industrial countries of the world have been tied together
by new bonds; most particularly by financial bonds that have produced a “delicate
interdependence of our credit-built finance” (Angell 1910: 32). This interdependence is a
novel phenomenon, explains Angell. It is an outcome partly of the evolution of technologies
and production and partly of increased trade. This interdependence has two primary effects.
First, productive capital has become international. Second, there is no longer an obvious
connection between a country’s power and its wealth. One industrial state can no longer
attack another and be enriched by the conquest. An all-out attack would, in today’s
interdependent world, be tantamount to economic suicide. Even a small crisis will cause
economic havoc in the countries involved. Industrial states cannot punish each other even a
little without creating negative impacts for their common economy. 6
The Anthropological Case
Part II of The Great Illusion is entitled “The Human Nature of the Case”. It argues that
statesmen and scholars have understood neither the changing nature of world affairs nor the
full importance of interdependence, and seeks to explain why statesmen cleave to the
eponymous “great illusion” even though it endangers them all.
Angell begins by defining three ideas which sustain the obsolescent outlook of political
and military leaders: That human beings are not fully rational, that human nature is constant,
and that human existence is a struggle in which only the fittest survive. Angell reluctantly
accepts the first idea but he objects to the second and the third.
Or to be more precise: Angell does not argue that human beings are irrational, only that
they are not fully rational. The distinction is crucial: Humans are equipped with reason and
have capacity to learn. But they do so only when certain preconditions are present. Also, the
process of learning is often slow. All societies have in their past embraced myths; most of
them have rejected their erroneous conceptions over time and replaced them with more
sensible views. Human beings evolve and adapt to changing circumstances.
6
In the remaining chapters of the book’s Part I, Angell draws several implications of his argument. One of them
is that interstate relations that rely on tribute are obsolescent. The days of imperialism are over. Colonial
possessions are no longer a source of prosperity. The fastest developing countries in the early 20th-century world
are, in fact, small industrial states that have neither colonies nor much military power, Angell argues.
7
This means that human nature is not constant. To bolster this point, Angell invokes
Charles Darwin. This was a brazen move, because Darwin was, at this time, the prime
authority for the adherents of the obsolete view of power politics. Angell points out, however,
that Darwin’s argument – that organisms adapt to their natural environment – implies that
such organisms have a plastic quality to them. Therefore, those who invoke Darwin in order
to analyse human affairs must necessarily attribute plastic qualities to human nature. They
cannot invoke Darwin and at the same time argue that human nature is constant.
Angell agrees that human existence is a struggle – that human society, like the animal
kingdom, is permeated by competition and strife and that the fittest survive. He insists,
however, that “fitness” means plasticity rather than power. 7 And he claims that deadly
struggle does not occur among individuals within a species; rather, he takes place across
species or with nature itself. Relationships within the species are marked not by struggle but
by solidarity, Angell asserts, with references to Darwin and the “admirable work” by Jacques
Novicow (1905). Angell then explains that those species which are most able to adapt – which
are “the fittest”, so to speak – are those which possess a higher degree of solidarity and have
evolved a finer division of labour among their members.
Relying on Darwin’s concepts of solidarity and adaptability, Angell then presents a
view of human history in which the principles of cooperation and interdependence have
slowly banished force and violence from human affairs. His argument is simple: “Man’s
irresistible drift away from conflict and towards co-operation is but the complete adaptation of
the organism (man) to its environment (the planet, nature)…” (Angell 1910: 163). In the light
of Darwin’s analysis, Angell concludes, conflict and war are dysfunctional activities for the
human species. 8 The establishment of organisations and institutions for solidarity and
cooperation, by contrast, are functional: They increase humanity’s chance of survival and the
evolution of the human species. They fuel the evolution of industry, of productive economies
7
Herbert Spencer’s famous slogan of the “survival of the fittest” equate “fitness” with “strength”, Angell avers.
This, he adds mockingly, is an interpretation that may be suitable for discussions of training studios and physical
muscle, but not for debates on evolution. In the light of Darwinian theories, fitness has nothing to do with brute
strength; it concerns plasticity. Fitness refers to organisms’ ability to adapt to their physical environment. The
Tyrannosaurus Rex did not die out because it was weak, but because it could not adapt to changing natural
circumstances.
8
Angell (p. 216f) invokes Darwin’s (2004:112) own argument that states select their best men for military
service – their healthiest, strongest and smartest young men. They are then sent out in battle and killed or
maimed. As a consequence, it is the young men who are rejected for military service – the infirm, the weak, the
plain and least adaptable – who are, in fact, selected to continue the species. The long-term result of war, then, is
not evolution but devolution: sustained war tends to lower the quality of the population. Angell adds an example:
In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, the health of the French population declined considerably – and the average
height of French men fell by more than an inch.
8
and of rising wealth and prosperity in many countries. They make relations among states
steadily more peaceful and orderly.
These fruits of social evolution accelerated during the second half of the 19th century
(ibid.: 175). They were, however, constantly under threat – e.g. from leaders who understand
neither Darwin nor the long-term trends of cooperation and trade. These leaders are blind to
the increasing interdependence of the industrial states. They retain their old concepts and
argue in obsolete and anachronistic ways.
The “great illusion”, then, is a collectively held, cognitive perspective sustained (at least
in part) by an obsolete terminology that keeps statesmen and scholars from seeing the world
as it really has become. British, French, German and American statesmen re-create or reconstitute the dangerous “great illusion” whenever they think and talk about world affairs.
Whenever they discuss order and security in their old and obsolete terms, they actually make
the world less safe. 9
International Education
Parts I and II of The Great Illusion conclude, each in its own way, with the same message:
viz., that war among industrial states is unwinnable but that world leaders do not see this.
They do not see that industrialism has changed the world. They have failed to adapt to a
changing world. Part III of the book begins by reminding the reader that human nature is not
constant, that humans can learn and through new knowledge change their ways. If collective
superstitions and falsehoods have been un-learned in the past, then systematic education can
dispel present illusions as well and replace them with accurate, fact-based knowledge.
In order to change the obsolete outlooks collectively held by politicians and the wider
public, people must be re-educated. Old worldviews must be dispelled; traditional ways of
grasping the world must be un-learned. New and sensible world views must replace the old
illusory approaches with updated concepts that capture international relations more accurately
– concepts like “interdependence”.
Sources and Influences
9
Angell quotes German officers like Admiral von Koster, politicians like Rudoph Martin and academic advisors
like Schultze-Gaevernitz, baron Carl von Stengel and Sebald R. Steinmetz – and he quotes from their speeches
and writings. Angell also quotes British and American observers, like Benjamin Kidd, Spencer Wilkinson,
President Theodore Roosevelt, General Homer Lea, Admiral Alfred T. Mahan and several other prominent
people. All these people help re-constitute the “great illusion” through their writings and pronouncements.
9
The Great Illusion was a bestseller in the English-speaking world. Translations quickly
appeared and the book soon exerted considerable influence in France, Germany, the
Netherlands and Scandinavia. 10 There are many reasons why this book was both popular and
influential. This section will touch on some of them.
External Conditions of Influence
One reason for the great success of The Great Illusion was its apparent scientific qualities.
Angell employed both liberal economic theories as well as Darwinist arguments – both of
which influenced the social sciences and the international discussions of the age.
Another reason was that the book addressed the increasing strife and conflict of the
age and expressed its sentiments and fears. 11
A third reason for the book’s success was the engagement and charisma of its author.
As soon as The Great Illusion was published, Angell was drawn into the peace movement,
which projected its hopes and idealism on him. 12 He was a strong personality; cocky,
impetuous, furiously independent and, by all appearances, thriving on controversy. 13
Finally, Angell was influential because he had powerful friends. When Angell’s first
anti-war book, Europe’ Optical Illusion, began to climb the British bestseller lists in the fall
of 1909, he received a letter from Viscount Esher, chairman of the British Committee of
Imperial Defence and connected to the royal family. Lord Esher told him that he had bought
10
La grande illusion, Die grosse Täuschung, De groote illusie, Det store Bedrag and Europas synvilla were
issued in respectively France, Germany, Holland, Copenhagen and Stockholm in the fall of 1910. Other
translations followed quickly.
11
When Germany was unified during the Franco-Prussian War (1871), Europe’s old and shopworn concert
system had finally unraveled. The Prussian victory and the subsequent expansion of German industry and power
imparted to many observers a growing sense of insecurity. Germany was, by the way, not the only expansive
state of the age; Great Britain and France had both expanded into Africa. The USA expanded rapidly westwards.
Russia expanded quickly eastwards. Japan expanded in Asia.
12
At this time the peace movement sparked journals and popular organizations and sustained a rapidly growing
movement of international scope (Beales 1931). Angell’s argument was lifted up by this swelling movement. Its
author soon became an active and engaging speaker – lecturing in England and conducting summer schools in
the USA. In the years prior to World War I, Angell founded or inspired a great number of clubs and
organizations – more than a hundred peace groups, International-Politics clubs, Norman-Angell leagues, warand-peace societies (See e.g. Angell 1951:170ff).
13
When The Great Illusion received a thorough, negative review, he reacted by firing off a polemical broadside
against the reviewer, the influential US Admiral Alfred T. Mahan. First, Angell addressed the main points of
criticism, then he concluded by attacking the Admiral’s own analysis of world events – an analysis which
represented the very doctrines of Realpolitik that Angell’s book branded as pigheaded and dangerous. Angell, in
other words, did not pass up a good opportunity for an argument – and certainly not against such a famous and
respected opponent. His debate with Mahan was the closest thing there is to “a first Great Debate” between the
schools of idealism and realism (Knutsen 2008).
10
several copies of the book and distributed them among his friends in Whitehall, in
Buckingham Palace and in industry. Europe’s Optical Illusion was a very important book,
Esher added. Indeed, it might turn out to be as important for the field of Political Science as
Darwin’s Origin of Species had been for Biology, he continued. If Angell were willing to
expand his analysis, then Esher would find support for him for an office and some secretarial
assistance.
Angell accepted Lord Esher’s offer. Esher, in turn, asked some of England’s wealthy
industrialists for backing to Angell so that he could devote himself to studies and writing. One
of these industrialists, Sir Richard Garton, contributed such a sizeable sum that the fund was
named after him: The Garton Foundation for Encouraging the Study of International Policy.
Thanks to The Garton Foundation Angell was able to revise Europe’s Optical Illusion
during the final months of 1909 and publish it as The Great Illusion in 1910. It was a roaring
success. By the time war broke out in the summer of 1914, the book had sold over two million
copies in several translations worldwide. Also, on the strength of Angell’s name, The Garton
Foundation began to finance a monthly magazine, War and Peace, in 1913 – which may lay
claim to being the world’s first IR-journal. Many of the early contributors to the study of
International Relations started out as contributors to War and Peace. Among them were H.N.
Brailsford, Viscount Bryce, G. Lowes Dickinson, John A. Hobson, and E. D. Morel – in
addition to Angell himself.
Angell wrote more articles than anybody. Because of his prolific production and his
lecture tours, he quickly gained adherents among British – and, soon, American –
businessmen. In 1913 and early 1914 he warned against war. But he also distanced himself
from pacifists and utopian idealists. His anti-war arguments were not phrased in moralistic or
liberal terms. At their base lay his trademark argument: That in an interdependent world, the
common ties of trade and finance would unravel under the impact of war and all developed
states would be thrown into economic catastrophe. He used a language of common sense that
appealed to business. He formulated his message in a sharp and pithy prose. He drew on
familiar liberal economic theories (Waltz 1959:99f). His sharp and analytical argument also
encouraged the interest in international politics more generally – which in effect paved the
way for the subsequent establishment of IR as a scholarly field (Knutsen 2008). 14
14
According to both Europe’s Optical Illusion and The Great Illusion, businessmen and industrialists had long
experienced interdependence and knew all about it; politicians, by contrast, were portrayed as pigheaded
irrationals. Industrialists, it is fair to assume, were flattered by this portrayal, whereas many politicians feared
that it might be accurate.
11
Internal Logic of Persuasion
The Great Illusion drew on liberal arguments of modernization and internationalization. Such
arguments were hardly original. Frederic Seebohm (1871) and James Lorimer (1871; 1884)
had employed the term of “interdependence” a generation earlier. Ivan Bloch (1899) and
William T. Stead (1899) had gauged the implications of interdependence on military affairs
and presented arguments upon which Angell relied for his “Economy of the Case”. For his
“Anthropology of the Case”, Angell drew on established interpretations of Darwin – explicitly
acknowledging his debt to Jacques Novicow (1893a, b; 1905) and Peter Kropotkin (1998
[1896-98]), both of whom stressed Darwin’s notion of cooperation in their social analyses.
From the point of view of academic scholarship, The Great Illusion presents few new
insights into the concepts of interdependence and adaptation. 15 When Angell nevertheless
managed to produce a strikingly original book, the prime reason is that he tied the old
arguments together is novel ways. One example is the way he used Novicow’s reading of
Darwin to demonstrate the logical inconsistencies of power politics. Another is his discussion
of how people may entertain views that are counter to their own interests; how they may
cleave to ideas that are erroneous, even dysfunctional and dangerous.
Angell was one of the first IR scholars who tried to locate the basic assumptions of
traditional Realpolitik – the dominant approach to international relations of the age. He
identified these as an anthropology that views human nature as constant and politics as a
Darwinian struggle. He then demonstrated that these assumptions are both untenable. First,
because the two are contradictory. Second, because none of them are sustainable – neither by
empirical evidence nor by Darwin’s theories.
It is worth pointing out that Richard Garton was not the only industrialist to sponsor studies on the causes
of war and the preconditions of peace. Alfred Nobel, Andrew Carnegie and Edward Ginn had provided generous
endowments to further the cause of peace before him; after him, David Davies provided a substantial sum to
establish the Department of international Relations at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (Beales 1931).
Industrialists’ sympathies, then, may provide a clue to why the emergence of scholarly IR coincided with the
growth of industrialism (Osiander 1998) and why its early years were dominated by “peace research”: viz., if
war triggered economic disaster, industrialists were against it; it was interest to prevent war, support anti-war
activism and to gather information about the causes of war – and about the precondition for a stable peace.
15
Angell’s discussion of the turn-of-the century financial revolution lacks references to the rich debate that
surrounded the classic studies by Conant, Hobson, or Hilferding. Angell touches the issue of colonial expansion
in several chapters, but never once uses the term “imperialism” which had shaped discussions on trade, politics,
peace and war since the late 1890s. The Great Illusion, is rife with social-science terms, yet its argument is not
firmly anchored in the academic literature of the age. Even the most cursory gleaning of its bibliography shows
big glitches and reveals that Angell’s main sources are newspapers and magazines. The few academic books that
Angell cites, tend to be liberal free-trade classics – like Adam Smith.
12
Angell sought to develop an up-to-date, more accurate – and non-pacifist – alternative
to Realpolitik. 16 This effort earned him a reputation for representing an “idealist” or “utopian”
approach to IR. It may be argued that The Great Illusion expressed an “idealist” argument in
the literal sense of the term: viz., that ideas determine human behavior and thus represent a
social and historical force. 17 It may also be argued that the book reflected classical liberal
theorists – such as Smith’s theory of the social division of labor and Ricardo’s theory of
comparative advantage. Angell was also deeply informed by the political philosophy of John
Stuart Mill. He was, however, no run-of-the-Mill liberal. For one, he accepted that the society
of sovereign states has an anarchic quality about it. For another, he entertained deep
reservations about the rational nature of human beings – indeed, this doubt constitutes one of
the thickest and reddest threads of Angell’s authorship.
Angell had long wrestled with the question of how people can cleave to absurd political
beliefs – even when these beliefs are counter to their own interests. It was the central question
in Patriotism under Three Flags, in Europe’s Optical Illusion and in The Great Illusion.
Angell formulates it squarely in Europe’s Optical Illusion: Why do statesmen, soldiers and
scribes maintain views that are not merely counter to their own interests, but which are
downright dangerous for society at large? This formulation is followed by a sketch towards an
answer. Their vocabulary “is a survival of conditions no longer existing”, writes Angell. Their
“mental conceptions follow at the tail of our vocabulary. International politics are still
dominated by terms applicable to conditions which the process of modern life has altogether
abolished” (Angell 1908:41). The modern world has, in other words, evolved faster than the
human mind can adapt.
This looks, on the face of it, like the Marxist notion; it dovetails with the notion that the
economic base of society forge ahead while the ideological superstructure lags behind. But
Angell was not a Marxist. In fact, he embraced no ready-made creed. He insisted on exploring
16
In this, however, he was largely unsuccessful. The Great Illusion leaves the reader with two strong and one
weak impression: a devastating critique of Realpolitik, a clever application of the concept of interdependence
and the rough outlines of an alternative approach to IR built on the theories of Charles Darwin. The Great
Illusion does not discuss the necessary establishment of a society of states or a League of Nations. In later texts,
however, Angell argued for the necessity of establishing some kind of league or society of nations; yet he never
enthusiastically supports US President Woodrow Wilson’s arguments to establish a League of Nations.
17
Edward H. Carr saw this kind of idealism in The Great Illusion, and he mocked it. In Carr’s view, Angell
thought that if he could convince enough people that war did not pay, then war would not occur. “Reason could
demonstrate the absurdity of the international anarchy; and with increasing knowledge, enough people would be
rationally convinced of its absurdity to put an end to it”, commented Carr (2001[1939]:28).
13
the available facts on his own. The result tended to be not materialist but idealist and,
increasingly, linguistic in nature.
It is tempting to wonder whether Angell had read Ferdinand de Saussure – who
developed a theory of structural linguistics and taught his famous Course linguistique
générale at the University of Geneva between 1900 and 1910. 18 Such an argument must,
however, rest on the most tenuous of circumstantial evidence. Again, it is more reasonable to
assume that Angell derived these ideas from his own mind. Angell was a journalist – a
language-worker, as it were – with an eye for style, for the power of rhetoric and for the
seductive turn of phrase. He had been taught by one of the time’s most perceptive observers
of the popular mind: Alfred Harmsworth. But there is more to Angell’s insights into language
than journalistic experience. There is also his experience in America’s Wild West.
Cowboy philosopher?
Norman Angell arrived in New York in 1890. Seventeen years old, with a suitcase in his hand
and a six-shooter in his pocket. He bought a train ticket for San Francisco. But on the long
transcontinental journey across America a fellow passenger told him that although great
fortunes beckoned on California’s western coast, even greater opportunities existed on
California’s eastern border. So young Ralph Lane stepped off the train a few stops early; in
Bakersfield, on the flat and arid plains of south-eastern California’s San Joaquin Valley.
The teenage adventurer tried his hands at many trades in the unpromising landscape:
cowboy, shepherd, well-digger, prospector, mailman, and construction worker. Staying away
from women and booze, he had soon earned enough money to buy a horse and 160 acres of
land. He settled about 50 miles north of Bakersfield – then a small town of about 2000
haphazardly collected souls. Here he hammered a pole into the ground so that he had
something he could tie his horse to. Then he built a small shed to live in – small, because
wood was costly, and he had to carry every single plank all the 50 miles from Bakersfield.
Finally he dug; one deep hole after another, in a vain hope of striking water so that he could
cultivate fruits and vegetables on his arid and treeless property.
In his years as a homesteader, Angell was forced to rely on his own resources: on his
own muscles and his own wits and especially on his own judgment of other people. Angell
18
This would be at the same time that Angell was exploring how dysfunctional views and opinions were encased
and preserved in language. Also, Angell knew Geneva – he had studied at the University of Geneva – he read
French had often picked up arguments from French journals (and, it is worth recalling, James Lorimer, Ivan
Bloch and Jacques Novicow first published their famous arguments in French).
14
quickly learned that his life might depend on the skill of quickly distinguishing between those
he could trust and those he couldn’t. He also learned that it was unwise to be different.
Difference attracts attention, he notes, and attention was as likely to come from rascals and
troublemakers as not. So it was important to be like everyone else. It was imperative, Angell
argues, to adapt and fit in. Angell’s (1951) lesson dovetails nicely with Darwin’s (2004:
111ff) remarks of natural selection in civilized societies.
It was also important to be friendly but not talkative, Angell (1951) suggests. To be
approachable and open but to retain your private opinions. Thus, there evolved a society of
self-reliant individuals who were uniform and taciturn – qualities that naturally evolved in a
society that lacked a central ordering force, Angell explains. But this put him and his fellow
settlers in a bind. In theory, they could, ultimately, trust no one but themselves. In practice, no
man could be self-sufficient in everything; it was necessary to relate to and cooperate with
other people. But those must be people you could trust. And it was precisely during the course
of these necessary relationships of cooperation, that trust would emerge. Often they would
evolve into strong bonds of solidarity and close and committing friendships.
Angell indicates this by his memories of the small Western community named Rosedale
– a dry and dusty cluster of crudely carpentered sheds some 40 miles away from Angell’s own
modest homestead, so named by a mad optimist or else some jester with a cruel sense of
humor.
[It] was almost entirely made up of English, and a queer mixture they were. The black
sheep of the family shipped abroad to get him as far away from home as possible; the
retired army man who had a notion to take up farming and had possibly commuted a
large part of his pension in order to buy land under these schemes; even a couple of
English maiden ladies who had been persuaded that by some magic they could make a
success in fruit-farming; ex-Indian civil servants; tea-planters who had lost their health
in malarial countries – this strange mix constituted a colony. I got to know a good many
of them. Usually they were charming, entertaining, honest, honourable, incompetent,
feckless failures; but almost always in a crisis showing guts. (…) I recall an ex-Indian
officer, a general, who had brought his elderly wife and a family of daughters out to
begin fruit-farming on the edge of the desert, where there was a trickle of irrigation
water. In India, of course, they had lived a princely life with unnumbered servants. [In
Rosedale] Lady X was the cook for the whole family in a wooden shack which, for six
months in the year, was an oven. The girls washed clothes and worked in the orchard,
milked the cows, cleaned out the manure, ran into debt, saw the work of years brought
15
to naught by pests or failure of water, the crops valueless from decline of prices, faced
illness, hardship beyond words – and yet, whenever I passed their way, it meant a
delightful and civilized evening with laughter and allusive talk of books and London
and India. The colony even had organized amateur theatricals, and I rode forty miles to
take part in them (ibid.:68f).
Angell gives the impression that the various settlements of the Wild West had sprung up
spontaneously. That they had been constructed by individuals who happened to be present and
under circumstances offered by the situation. This made the various communities, if not
entirely lawless, at least quite restricted in their application of the law. They were anarchical
but not without order. However, this order relied on norms and rules that seemed closer to
what Seebohm (1871) referred to as “lynch law” than to “positive law”.
Angell found that Darwin’s arguments applied well to these primitive conditions – not
those arguments that stressed competition and strength, but those that emphasized cooperation
and plasticity. Also, he added a point that Darwin noted but quickly passed over: viz., that
human beings are linguistic animals. That in human society, cooperation, solidarity and social
life in general is impossible without a common language.
Darwin (2004: 69ff) saw language as a skill acquired in society through imitation; he
also considered it as a medium and a precondition for mental evolution. Angell inferred a
more radical claim, that a common language is a precondition for the evolution of human
society itself. He was alerted to this point by a close cowboy friend, Covert – “a lanky sixfooter who might have stepped out of the pages of Bret Harte” (Angell 1951: 39). Covert had
no formal education, but he was observant and shrewd and possessed a sharp common sense.
There is no doubt that Angell learned from Covert’s ability to “see at a glance truths
which … my education failed to enable me to see” (ibid.: 61). For he soon realized that
Covert’s “capacity to get at the heart of truth could be applied to abstract matters like politics
and morals, as well as to practical things” (idem). This capacity echoes through Angell’s
books. It most certainly sustains the theme in Angell’s first books – the notion that people can
be “completely blind to what ought to be self-evident, to simple facts of the external world
beneath our noses…” (ibid.:105).
Covert’s capacity flowed partly from a homespun, Cartesian-like logic, 19 and partly
from a shrewd facility of assessing peoples’ character – of quickly distinguishing those he
19
Cf. Angell’s (1951:63) effort to reconstruct Covert’s method. If you want to know the real truth about
anything and if you want to separate out the false ideas, Covert explained, “then you could usually find proof of
that by some fact beneath your nose if only you would look for it. See if what you do not know for certain agrees
16
could trust from those he couldn’t. But it also flowed from an understanding of the role that
language played in the polyglot American West. Homesteaders came from many cultures;
they spoke different languages and did not always understand each other well. For them
language was more than mere words. It included gestures of limbs and facial grimaces. Also,
it was something more than a medium through which rational speakers account for
phenomena in accurate and objective ways.
Covert protested Angell’s belief in language as an objective and impartial tool for
finding truth. He told a story about a cold and lonesome winter spent in a tiny community
where people talked about the same things every day. “As I listened to the men” that winter,
he said,
… it became plain to me that when people got to talking and discussing, they soon stop
wanting to know what the truth is. Instead of that, they want, above all, to prove that
their argument is right and that the other fellow’s wrong… A man would talk himself
into standing by one particular plan, and the more you showed it was impossible, the
more he would stick by it, until finally you saw that he would far rather lose his life by
going his way than save it by going another (Angell 1951:63).
There are circumstances, then, when a language is something other than a tool which
academics can attach to logical reasoning and obtain clarity and insight. Language is a social
phenomenon and is sometimes tied in with the identity of the user and with acceptance and
social respect. 20
Some individuals have a gift for using language to construct identities and manipulate
crowds for personal gain. Angell tells the story of a politician who came to the small
community of Bakersfield to gather votes. He made speeches about the US foreign policy,
stressed the “British peril” and, as a consequence, whipped up a mix of xenophobia and
patriotism that most members of the audience had never before felt – immigrants as they all
were.
It is tempting to conclude that Angell’s understanding of language as a tool for realityconstruction was much enhanced by his association with his cowboy friend Covert and that
with that you do know for certain. And in trying to check up in this way I soon saw, by observing the other men,
that it was far better to think straight about a few things than to think crookedly about many”.
20
In the terms of post-positivist social science – which repeated Covert’s points a century later – one might say
that language constitutes its user; that conversations, when repeated often enough, constitute reality.
17
the knowledge he acquired in the American West sharpened the reasoning of The Great
Illusion. For what is the basis of this dangerous “illusion” of the title other than the political
language we inhabit? For through this language we construct around us a fiction and conserve
its mental images; over time these images may have been left behind by a rapidly evolving
world.
Conclusions
This article has discussed Angell’s The Great Illusion. It has examined the three basic
concepts that support its argument – interdependence, adaptation and the language of politics.
It has offered a synopsis of the argument and a biographical sketch of the author. It has also
suggested that this book plays a formative role in the early evolution of IR as a scholarly field
because it spurred a debate on war and peace that attracted the attention of politicians,
industrialists and the general public. The book helped pave the way for more systematic
research on the causes of war and the preconditions for peace.
Theories of Interdependence and Adaptation
The Great Illusion gave a devastating criticism of traditional power politics – i.e., what
subsequent authors would refer to as Realpolitik or Realism. It argued that the advocates of
Realpolitik overlooked the effects of industrial innovation, trade and finance that spun modern
industrial states into a web of global interdependence.
The article has not commented much on Angell’s well-known contribution to
interdependence theory. Instead it has highlighted the lesser-known recommendation that
statesmen and scholars observe the world coolly, and adapt to changing circumstances by
altering their views and behaviour. It has shown that Angell invoked Charles Darwin to drive
his arguments home – an influential author whom the advocates of Realpolitik often invoked
to strengthen their views. It has drawn attention to Angell’s charge that the advocates of
Realpolitik misconstrued Darwin’s views with their glib slogan of the “survival of the fittest”.
The article, then, reminds the modern reader – a century later – that the early debate of
IR was deeply embedded in a Darwinist discourse. It also reminds the modern reader that
there was more to Darwin than struggle and strength; that the Darwinist discourse was general
enough to serve many different arguments (Crook 1994). On the one hand was still-known
Social-Darwinism – whose arguments Angell took on. On the other were the now lesser-
18
known arguments of “peace biology” – an interpretation which served the anti-war movement
and the radical left.
The more obvious point here is that early IR scholars invoked Darwin as a vantage point
for their analysis; searching for scientific terms and theories which would help them grasp the
nature and the regularities of international relations, they applied, among others, Darwin’s
theory of evolution. A more interesting point from the point of view of a disciplinary historian
is the ways in which these applications divide neatly into two contrasting approaches. On the
one hand are the Social-Darwinists who relied on the notions of struggle, security and power.
On the other are the peace-biologists who relied on plasticity, solidarity and adaptation.
Between them lies an ontological abyss of unbridgeable proportions. It is tempting to see this
division as foreshadowing the clash which would appear later between Realism and Idealism.
To find an example of this clash one needs go no further than the spat which followed US
Admiral Mahan’s review of The Great Illusion in 1912. Mahan wrote a damning assessment
of the book. Angell responded with a perceptive criticism not only of Mahans’s review but of
the Admiral’s entire approach to IR – to which Mahan responded in turn (Angell 1912;
Mahan 1912). In this polemic each of the two men self-consciously criticized the other’s
approach to questions concerning causes of war and preconditions of peace while defending
his own. 21
Anarchical Societies
This article submits that Angell’s experiences in the American West formed his understanding
of concepts like interdependence and adaptation. He was affected by life in settler
communities whose central government was so distant and weak that society approached the
anarchical. In the neighborhoods of Bakersfield and Rosedale struggle was “the law of
survival”. But, as Angell (1910: 161; 1951) makes very clear, this was mainly a struggle
against nature – it was a “struggle of man with the universe, not man with man”. In order to
survive, prosper and make life easier, humans had to cooperate, evolve social habits and
norms and learn to trust each other.
21
The emergence of the scholarly study of IR coincided with the process of industrialization and its first scholars
were much impressed by the impact of industrialization on international affairs (Osiander 1998:418). Realists
(like Mahan) responded by cleaving to traditional, static notions – insisting on the unchanging nature of human
beings and on static or cyclical interpretations of history. Others (like Angell) discussed industrialization in
terms of historical process and evolution; industrialism, they argued, irreversibly changed the international
system and forced human beings to adapt – and thus change. Angell relied heavily on the Darwinist concept of
“adaptation” that he found in authors like Jacques Novicow (1886; 1893b; 1905). Also, Angell may have been
attracted by Darwin’s ecological holism which he saw as similar to the liberal concept of interdependence.
19
Angell’s descriptions of life in America’s western settlements are reminiscent of that
imaginary condition which British social-contract theorists refer to as the “state of nature” – a
staple term in early IR-theory, but replaced after the turn of the century with the concept of
“anarchy”. Angell’s descriptions, however, conform more readily to the vision of John Locke
than that of Thomas Hobbes.
It is tempting to conclude that Angell’s American experience made Darwin’s law of
survival and Locke’s state of nature run together in his mind – that his experience made him
read Darwin and Locke through the same lens and that they predisposed him to see natural
selection as a principle that relied on solidarity (rather than struggle) and plasticity (rather
than power) and to see it as benefitting community as a whole over time.
Angell stresses humankind’s ability to learn and adapt. He emphasizes solidarity,
cooperation, interdependence and pragmatic institution building. This dovetails nicely with
most of the axioms of the liberal tradition of political theory. However, Angell lacks that
essential ingredient which would otherwise have made him a fully-fledged liberal: A faith in
human reason. Angell does not see man as a fully rational animal. Instead he sees him as an
animal with a language – and through that language man is able to construct his own
perceptions of the world.
A Pre-Theory of Language
Angell returned to this linguistic theme again and again – it in Patriotism under Three Flags
(1903), in Europe’s Optical Illusion (1909) and in The Great Illusion (1910). In subsequent
books, too, Angell explores the ways in which people’s perceptions of world affairs are
twisted and turned – by external influence (as in Angell 1922) or by self-delusion (Angell
1927; 1932). In all these discussions Angell grapples with his, perhaps, most unique and
original idea: the connection between language and politics.
The Great Illusion is based on the premise that language is medium that preserves
ideas. Here, as in several of his books, Angell notes that the world of the 1900s was very
different from that of the 1870s or the 1850s; that economic forces had altered the world and
its social relations, yet people continued to discuss world affairs as if nothing had happened.
They were enthralled by ancient arguments; seized by an obsolete language which rearticulated old views which dangerously thwarted their views of current issues of war, peace
and security.
This argument, reflecting the limits of human reason, instilled in him a basic skepticism
that kept him from joining the leading advocates of pacifism and utopianism, two groups
20
which insistently proposed to combat conflict and war with educational measures. In the
concluding chapter of The Great Illusion Angell insisted that pacifism, too, is a short-sighted
and dangerous policy:
It is evident, that as long as the [great illusion] we are dealing with is all but
universal in Europe, so long as the nations believe that in some way the military and
political subjugation of others will bring with it a tangible material advantage to the
conqueror, we all do, in fact, stand in danger from such aggression. Not his interest, but
what he deems to be his interest, will furnish the real motive of our prospective enemy’s
action. And as the illusion with which we are dealing does, indeed, dominate all those
minds most active in European politics, we must, while this remains the case, regard an
aggression … as within the bounds of practical politics…
On these grounds alone I deem that we or any other nation are justified in taking
means of self-defence to prevent such aggression. This is not, therefore, a plea for
disarmament irrespective of the action of other nations. So long as current political
philosophy in Europe remains what it is, I would not urge the reduction of our war
budget by a single sovereign or a single dollar (ibid: 318)
These words reveal several telling aspects of Angell’s argument. First, that established
statesmen are not alone in being seized by illusions; pacifists, too, have their world view
shaped by obsolete terms and outdated perspectives.
Second, it identifies perception as an integral part of politics – and therefore as a worthy
topic of study in Political Science. Most particularly, perspectives that are collectively held –
Weltanschauungen, ideologies and nationalisms – are integral to the study of international
affairs. Thus Angell says of enemy threats, that it is not the interest of the prospective enemy
that will furnish the real motive of his action, it is his perception of his interest – it is “what he
deems to be his interest” that will drive his behaviour.
Third, the quote above reveals that Angell does not reject the perspective of Realpolitik
wholesale. Indeed, he accepts that the international system is composed of sovereign states
and that they, through their interaction, produce a system that is akin to a Lockean state of
nature. Since human reason is limited, the industrial states of the Western world – who enjoy
the best preconditions for educating their populations in a new and more appropriate view of
the world – cannot disarm unilaterally without undermining their own security.
When Angell concludes that the road towards a safer world goes through education, his
is not a glib and easily reached conclusion. He has arrived at it reluctantly, after having
21
eliminated other possibilities and he tempers it with a balance-of-power argument. Education
must be international and coordinated. It must take place in all states at once and must
progress in coordinated ways. Growing knowledge and increasing insights must push back
illusions and military myths on broad front in all countries. They must inform all statesmen
equally and in the same degree. Otherwise, a dangerous imbalance of illusion and insight may
appear among the Great Powers of the world and increase the danger of war.
Instead of explaining human societies in terms of self-interest and reason, Angell resorts
to a linguistic theory. He stresses that factor which most social-contract theorists seem to
overlook: viz., that cooperation, solidarity and social life in general is impossible without a
common language. He approaches – but never really reaches – the view that sustained
conversation is constitutive of perceptions and perspectives; perhaps even of entire societies.
22
LITTERATURE
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23
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25