330 J.-A. PEMBERTON
time of the publication of The Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr’s analysis met
with some strong criticism.^319
In a review appearing in the volume of the Annals of the American
Academy entitled ‘When Peace Comes,’ Hans Kohn confessed that he
doubted that Carr’s analysis was particularly ‘helpful’ and maintained that
its positive part was ‘rather meagre and sterile.’^320 Kohn observed that
The Twenty Years’ Crisis ‘rightly’ emphasised ‘the element of power in
politics’ and that there was much to agree with in terms of Carr’s critique
of ‘utopianism of a certain kind, namely, wishful thinking not backed by
force or by a clear vision of the ways of realization.’ That said, Kohn did
not think that Carr had much to say that was new or insightful in regard
to the element of power in politics or about utopianism. More impor-
tantly, he thought that the utopianism at which Carr took aim was alien
to the thinking of those who were the subjects of Carr’s ‘sarcasm’.^321
Kohn expressed surprise that in an English book dealing with the
history of international relations in the interwar period ‘no attention..
[was]...paid to France.’^322 Kohn did not explain the reason for his sur-
prise but it is worth calling attention to a thesis frequently aired by a
range of French figures in various forums during this period, namely,
that ‘moral forces...[are]...more forcible when backed with good
guns,’ a thesis that had been embraced under French influence in the
1920s by someone whom Madariaga described as that ‘untiring apos-
tle’ of an International Police Force: David Davies.^323 One could
hardly charge the partisans of such a thesis with failing to emphasise
the element of power in politics. Indeed, it was precisely because the
French insisted on the point that good laws must be backed by good
(^319) Lucian M. Ashworth, ‘Did the Realist-Idealist Great Debate Really Happen? A
Revisionist History of International Relations,’ International Relations 16, no. 1 (2002):
33–51, 42. Ashworth records that the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science,
International Conciliation, Journal of Politics and Political Science Quarterly did not print
reviews of the book.
(^320) Hans Kohn, review of Frieden und Abendland, by Ernst Ferger; The Twenty Years’
Crisis 1919–1939, by Edward Hallett Carr; and Modern Political Doctrines, by Alfred
Zimmern, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 210, no. 1
(1940): 152–53.
(^321) Ibid., 152–53.
(^322) Ibid., 153.
(^323) Madariaga, ‘Gilbert Murray and the League,’ 177.