Introduction: Martin Wight on History and International Relations

Abstract This Introduction informs the reader about the history-oriented writings of the late Professor Martin Wight (1913–1972), a historian and scholar of international relations. It discusses his previously unpublished essay “What Is International Relations?” and other works on standards of excellence in scholarship about history and international relations. The Introduction also considers works by Wight on European integration efforts since 1945; British policy in the Middle East, notably in relation to the 1956 Suez crisis; and European politics in the interwar period leading up to 1939. This last category features four chapters by Wight from the noteworthy Chatham House collection sponsored by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, The World in March 1939. Wight’s chapters on Germany and Eastern Europe stand out as exceptionally thorough and discerning, owing in part to their reliance on a wealth of primary and secondary sources. This collection also reproduces works by Wight—mostly book reviews—on specific historians, including Geoffrey Barraclough, Marc Bloch, Jacob Bronowski, Herbert Butterfield, R. G. Collingwood, Homer Carey Hockett, Bruce Mazlish, Lewis Namier, Edouard Perroy, Charles Petrie, A. L. Rowse, Denis Mack Smith, A. J. P. Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, and Veronica Wedgwood.