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Gilbert Murray and International Relations: Hellenism, liberalism, and international intellectual cooperation as a path to peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2010

PETER WILSON
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Abstract

Gilbert Murray was one of the towering figures of 20th century cultural and intellectual life, and the foremost Hellenist of his generation. He was also a tireless campaigner for peace and international reconciliation, and a pioneer in the development of international intellectual cooperation, not least in the field of International Relations (IR). Yet in IR today he is largely forgotten. This article seeks to put Murray back on the historiographical map. It argues that while in many ways consistent with the image of the inter-war ‘utopian’, Murray's thinking in certain significant ways defies this image. It examines the twin foundations of his international thought – liberalism and Hellenism – and their manifestation in a version of international intellectual cooperation that while aristocratic and outmoded in some respects, nonetheless contains certain enduring insights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 881 - 909
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

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References

1 See, for example, Murray, Gilbert, ‘The Exploitation of Inferior Races in Ancient and Modern Times’, in Hirst, F. W., Murray, Gilbert and Hammond, J. L. (eds), Liberalism and the Empire: Three Essays (London: Brimley Johnson, 1900)Google Scholar .

2 The Gilbert Murray Trust.

3 Stray, Christopher (ed.), Gilbert Murray Reassessed: Hellenism, Theatre and International Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press)Google Scholar ; Morefield, Jeanne, Covenants Without Swords: Idealist Liberalism and the Spirit of Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar .

4 See Wight, Martin, Systems of States, ed. Bull, H. (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977)Google Scholar , chs. 2–3; Watson, Adam, The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (London: Routledge, 1992)Google Scholar , ch. 5; Buzan, Barry and Little, Richard, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar , Part III.

5 See, for example, Garst, Daniel, ‘Thucydides and Neorealism’, International Studies Quarterly, 33:1 (1989)Google Scholar ; Forde, Steven, ‘International Realism and the Science of Politics: Thucydides, Machiavelli and Neorealism’, International Studies Quarterly, 39:2 (1995)Google Scholar ; Lebow, Richard Ned, ‘Play it Again Pericles: A Non-Realist Reading of Thucydides’, European Journal of International Relations, 2:2 (1996)Google Scholar ; Bedford, David and Workman, Thom, ‘The Tragic Reading of the Thucydidean Tragedy’, Review of International Studies, 21:1 (2001)Google Scholar ; Lebow, Richard Ned, ‘Thucydides the Constructivist’, American Political Science Review, 95:3 (2001)Google Scholar ; Kokaz, Nancy, ‘Moderating Power: A Thucydidean Perspective’, Review of International Studies, 27:1 (2001)Google Scholar ; Welch, David A., ‘Why International Relations Theorists Should Stop Reading Thucydides’, Review of International Studies, 29:3 (2003)Google Scholar .

6 See, for example, Monoson, S. Sara and Loriaux, Michael, ‘The Illusion of Power and the Disruption of Moral Norms: Thucydides’ Critique of Periclean Policy’, American Political Science Review, 92:2 (1998)Google Scholar ; Kokaz, Nancy, ‘Between Anarchy and Tyranny: Excellence and the Pursuit of Power and Peace in Ancient Greece’, Review of International Studies, 27, Special Issue (2001)Google Scholar ; Ned Lebow, Richard and Kelly, Robert E., ‘Thucydides and Hegemony: Athens and the US’, Review of International Studies, 27:4 (2001)Google Scholar ; Ned Lebow, Richard, The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar .

7 Iriye, Akira, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1997)Google Scholar .

8 Murray's self-description in a BBC broadcast of 1947. See West, Francis, Gilbert Murray: A Life (London: Croom Helm, 1984), pp. 234–235Google Scholar .

9 The three were models for three of Bernard Shaw's characters in his 1905 play Major Barbara: Lady Britomart (Lady Rosalind), Barbara Undershaft (Lady Mary), and Adolphus Cusins (Murray). Major Barbara was revived at the National Theatre, London, in 2008.

10 Murray's impact on the London stage reverberates today in the work of Tony Harrison, and the frequent production of many Greek plays particularly at the National Theatre. A measure of Murray's influence on Harrison is the latter's inclusion of the ghost of Murray in his 2008 play about Fridtjof Nansen, Fram. Murray was one of the most prominent campaigners, with George Bernard Shaw, for a national theatre. The idea did not fully materialise until 1976 with the opening of the South Bank complex. There is some poetic justice (and perhaps a trace of Murray's influence) in the fact that its principal auditorium, the Olivier, is modelled on the ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus.

11 See Stapleton, Julia, ‘The Classicist as Liberal Intellectual: Gilbert Murray and Alfred Eckhard Zimmern’, in Stray, (ed.), Murray Reassessed, pp. 265, 268–275Google Scholar .

12 Murray, Gilbert, The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915)Google Scholar .

13 The same judgment was reached recently by Ned Lebow, who draws a parallel much in the spirit of Murray between Sir Edward Grey's statesmanship in 1914 and that of the Spartan King, Archidamus, in 431. Lebow, Tragic Vision, p. 94.

14 See Shaw, George Bernard, ‘Professor Gilbert Murray's Defence of Sir Edward Grey’, The New Statesman (17 July 1915), pp. 349–351Google Scholar .

15 For details of Murray's involvement in radical and Liberal politics during the war see Ceadel, Martin, ‘Murray and International Politics’, in Stray, (ed.), Murray Reassessed, pp. 223–230Google Scholar .

16 The seminal study of this fascinating body remains Northedge, F. S., ‘International Intellectual Cooperation within the League of Nations: Its Conceptual Basis and Lessons for the Present’, University of London PhD thesis, 1953Google Scholar .

17 For further biographical information see: West, Gilbert Murray; Wilson, Duncan, Gilbert Murray OM, 1866–1957 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar ; Stray, Christopher, ‘Murray, (George) Gilbert Aimé’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar ; Wilson, Peter, ‘Gilbert Murray, 1866–1957’, in Brack, D. and Randall, E. (eds), Dictionary of Liberal Thought (London: Politico‘s, 2007), pp. 291–294Google Scholar .

18 Porter, Brian, ‘Lord Davies, E. H. Carr and the Spirit Ironic’, International Relations, 16:1 (2002), p. 94Google Scholar .

19 The revisionist history of inter-war IR is now extensive. See, for example, Long, David, ‘J. A. Hobson and Idealism in International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 17:3 (1991)Google Scholar ; Long, David and Wilson, Peter (eds), Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis: Inter-War Idealism Reassessed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)Google Scholar ; Wilson, Peter, ‘The Myth of the First Great Debate’, Review of International Studies, 24:5 (1998)Google Scholar ; Schmidt, Brian, ‘Lessons from the Past: Reassessing Interwar Disciplinary History of International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly, 42:3 (1998)Google Scholar ; Osiander, Andreas, ‘Rereading early Twentieth Century IR Theory: Idealism Revisited’, International Studies Quarterly, 42:3 (1998)Google Scholar ; Thies, Cameron G., ‘Progress, History and Identity in International Relations Theory: The Case of the Idealist-Realist Debate’, European Journal of International Relations, 8:2 (2002)Google Scholar ; Sylvest, Casper, ‘Interwar Internationalism, the British Labour Party, and the Historiography of International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly, 48:2 (2004)Google Scholar ; Quirk, Joel and Vigneswaran, Darshan, ‘The Construction of an Edifice: The Story of a First Great Debate’, Review of International Studies, 31:1 (2005)Google Scholar ; and Ashworth, Lucian, ‘Where are the Idealists in Interwar IR?’, Review of International Studies, 32:2 (2006)Google Scholar .

20 Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 1st edition (London: Macmillan, 1939), p. 252Google Scholar .

21 Their preferred candidate was the artist and disarmament campaigner, W. Arnold Foster.

22 See, Porter, Brian, ‘David Davies and the Enforcement of Peace’, in Long, and Wilson, (ed.), Thinkers, pp. 67–70Google Scholar ; and Porter, ‘Davies, Carr and the Spirit Ironic’, pp. 79–84, 86–93. While Murray does not come out of it as badly as Davies, who is revealed as conceited and dictatorial, his involvement does dent his reputation for irreproachable personal conduct (and reveals perhaps more poignantly that the desire for peace at the time in Britain was so great that even individuals of the utmost integrity, such as Murray, could find themselves embroiled in unholy alliances engaging in far from holy acts). See also Jones, , E. H. Carr and International Relations: A Duty to Lie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 22–45Google Scholar ; Haslam, , The Vices of Integrity: E. H. Carr 1892–1982 (London: Verso, 1999), pp. 57–58, 81–84, 100–101Google Scholar .

23 Murray to Carr, 5 December 1936; Carr to Murray 8 December 1936. Gilbert Murray MSS, Box 227, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

24 E. H. Carr to Gilbert Murray, 8 December 1936, MSS Gilbert Murray, Box 227, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

25 Wilson, Peter, ‘Retrieving Cosmos: Gilbert Murray's Thought on International Relations’, in Stray, (ed.), Murray Reassessed, p. 242Google Scholar .

26 For example, Leonard Woolf. See, Wilson, Peter, International Theory of Leonard Woolf: A Study in Twentieth-Century Idealism (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 75–76Google Scholar .

27 See Murray, , The Ordeal of this Generation: The War, the League and the Future (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1929), pp. 81, 115–119Google Scholar ; Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, pp. 264–84. See also Manning, C. A. W. (ed.), Peaceful Change: An International Problem (London: Macmillan, 1937)Google Scholar .

28 Murray, (ed.), Liberality and Civilization (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1938), p. 64Google Scholar .

29 For a comprehensive study of the problematic nature of ‘aggression’ in international relations from the League period to the present see Wilson, Page, Aggression, Crime and International Security (London: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar .

30 For example, Murray, , From the League to the UN (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948), pp. 54–55Google Scholar .

31 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 92–3.

32 Bull, Hedley, The Control of the Arms Race: Disarmament and Arms Control in the Missile Age (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961)Google Scholar , ch. 8.

33 See, Noel-Baker, , Disarmament (London: Hogarth Press, 1926); The First World Disarmament Conference 1932–33 and Why it Failed (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979)Google Scholar ; Lloyd, Lorna, ‘Philip Noel-Baker and Peace Through Law’, in Long, and Wilson, (eds), Thinkers, pp. 25–57Google Scholar .

34 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 90–1; From League to UN, pp. 37–8, 79–80, 159–60.

35 Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, p. 95.

36 Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, p. 111. An anonymous reviewer in the (New York) Nation spotted the problem as early as 1921: ‘Like Maynard Keynes, Professor Murray views everything from the standpoint of the British Empire, and does it so naturally and sincerely that in perfect good faith he identifies not only the good of the world but the laws of right and justice with the interests of his own nation.’ ‘Books in Brief’, The Nation, 63:2931 (1921), pp. 269–70.

37 That Murray was something of a conservative in radical clothing has been highlighted by Morefield. Murray, she says, conceived himself as an ‘apostle of a radically transformative approach to world politics’ but one which ‘required little or no change in the global status quo’ (Covenants Without Swords, pp. 2–4). None of this should be taken to imply, however, that Carr's position, and the policy prescriptions he drew from it, are unproblematic. See my ‘Carr and his Early Critics: Responses to The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1939–46’, in Cox, M. (ed.), E. H. Carr: A Critical Appraisal (London: Palgrave, 2000), pp. 183–197Google Scholar ; and Ashworth, Lucian, International Relations and the Labour Party: Intellectuals and Policy Making from 1918–1945 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 142–158Google Scholar .

38 See, for example, Long, David, Towards a New Liberal Internationalism: The International Theory of J. A. Hobson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar ; Ashworth, Lucian, Creating International Studies: Angell, Mitrany and the Liberal Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999)Google Scholar ; Wilson, International Theory of Leonard Woolf; Lamb, Peter, Harold Laski: Problems of Democracy, the Sovereign State, and International Society (New York: Palgrave, 2004)Google Scholar ; Schmidt, Brian C., ‘Paul S. Reinsch and the Study of Imperialism and Internationalism’, in Long, D. and Schmidt, B. (eds), Imperialism and Internationalism in the Discipline of International Relations (New York: SUNY, 2005)Google Scholar ; Ashworth, International Relations and the Labour Party; and Chong, Alan, ‘Lessons in International Communication: Carr, Angell, Lippmann’, Review of International Studies, 33:4 (2007)Google Scholar .

39 Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, ch. 4. See also Wilson, ‘Myth’, pp. 8–13.

40 Murray, Ordeal, p. 14.

41 Ibid., p. 18. See also Wilson, Peter, ‘Liberalism and the World circa 1930: Gilbert Murray's The Ordeal of this Generation’, Politik, 4:12 (2009), pp. 15–20Google Scholar .

42 On this point Carr quotes Murray approvingly: ‘War does not always arise from mere wickedness or folly. It sometimes arises from mere growth and movement. Humanity will not stand still.’ From Murray, The League of Nations and the Democratic Idea, quoted in Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, p. 264. Murray's blend of faith and stoicism is captured in a letter to Sir Montague Burton (14 February 1934): ‘This is a time full of danger and discouragement and we believers in peace and international justice have just to set our teeth and carry on. I think in the long run we cannot fail – unless there is some complete collapse of civilization’. MSS Gilbert Murray, Box 415, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

43 Murray, Ordeal, p. 24.

44 Murray, , Liberality and Civilization (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1938), p. 38Google Scholar .

45 See further Wilson, ‘Myth’, p. 13.

46 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 59–62, 125–6, 190–1. See also Murray, From League to UN, pp. 38–9, 68–9.

47 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 133–4; Murray, , The Problem of Foreign Policy: A Consideration of Present Dangers and the Best Methods for Meeting Them (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1921), pp. 10–16, 30–59Google Scholar .

48 ‘I did not realise that any one could be, I will not say wicked, but so curiously destitute of generous ambition, so incapable of thinking greatly’. Lloyd George's aim was to ‘get a very large majority in the House of Commons and to crush his old colleagues, and conceivable rivals, entirely out of existence’. A retributive peace with Germany was his means to this end. See Murray, Problem of Foreign Policy, pp. 10–14; Williams, Andrew, Liberalism and War: The Victors and the Vanquished (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 160–161Google Scholar .

49 Murray, , ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, Contemporary Review, 128:720, pp. 691–694Google Scholar . Around the same time, Charles Webster, no utopian dreamer, was making much the same point: ‘it is not much use teaching History to statesmen if the people they represent are left in ignorance’. Quoted in Hall, Ian, ‘The Art and Practice of a Diplomatic Historian: Sir Charles Webster, 1886–1961’, International Politics, 42 (2005), p. 482Google Scholar .

50 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 193–7.

51 See Long, David, ‘Who Killed the International Studies Conference?’, Review of International Studies, 32:4 (2006)Google Scholar .

52 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 54–7.

53 Ibid., pp. 140–4.

54 Murray to Hugh Cecil, quoted in de Madariaga, Salvador, ‘Gilbert Murray and the League’, in Smith, J. and Toynbee, A. (eds), Gilbert Murray: An Unfinished Autobiography (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960), pp. 180–182Google Scholar .

55 Murray to Lord Lyttleton, quoted in Madariaga, ‘Gilbert Murray and the League’, p. 183.

56 This and previous quote, Murray to Lord Robert Cecil, quoted in Madariaga, ‘Gilbert Murray and the League’, p. 182.

57 Ceadel, ‘Murray and International Politics’, p. 221.

58 West, Gilbert Murray, pp. 8–13. Several political philosophers have highlighted hatred of cruelty as a defining attribute of liberalism, for example, Minogue, Kenneth, The Liberal Mind (London: Methuen, 1963), pp. 6–13Google Scholar ; and Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)Google Scholar , Part III.

59 West, Gilbert Murray, pp. 14–15.

60 Morefield, Covenants Without Swords, p. 15.

61 Ibid., p. 25. See also Richardson, J. L., ‘Contending Liberalisms: Past and Present’, European Journal of International Relations, 3:1 (1997), pp. 10–11Google Scholar .

62 Bernard Bosanquet's thesis in ‘Patriotism in the Perfect State’, in Sidgwick, E. (ed.), The International Crisis in its Ethical and Psychological Aspects (London: H. Milford and Oxford University Press, 1915), pp. 132–154Google Scholar . In the view of the neo-Hegelians, the ‘True’ state (cf. one that merely ‘exists’) was one that endeavoured to harmonise social relations and provide increasing opportunities for individual and group moral realisation. Contrary to the view attributed to Hegel that war was inherent in the nature of the state, the neo-Hegelians claimed that the true state was a satisfied state and inherently pacific. Only untrue states, those that failed to provide the conditions for the ‘organised good life’ of their inhabitants, were war-like. Hence Bossanquet's remark: ‘War belongs to a state, then, ultimately, not insofar it is a state, but insofar as it is not a state’ (‘Patriotism’, p. 145). And Muirhead’s: ‘War is a feature of states not as such but insofar as they fail to be states’ (quoted in Boucher, David, ‘British Idealism, the State, and International Relations’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 55:4 (1994), p. 686)Google Scholar .

63 Morefield, Covenants Without Swords, p. 19, p. 56, pp. 65–6, 74, 77–8.

64 Ibid., p. 26.

65 Interestingly, the same has been said of one of Murray's closest friends at Oxford, Leonard Hobhouse. According to (Sylvest, Casper‘Continuity and Change in British Liberal Internationalism, c. 1900–1930’, Review of International Studies, 31:2 (2005), p. 271)Google Scholar , Hobhouse sought to ‘exploit the popularity of these [evolutionary and neo-Hegelian] vocabularies by phrasing his own project in their terms.’

66 Murray, , Satanism and the World Order (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1919), p. 28Google Scholar . In this fascinating lecture, Murray conceives Satanism as ‘The spirit of unmixed hatred towards the existing World Order, the spirit which rejoices in any widespread disaster which is also a disaster for the world's rulers’. It was, he felt, ‘more rife to-day than it has been for over a thousand years’ (p. 33). Its ‘great seed-ground’ (p. 31) was the breakdown of relations between imperial rulers and ruled, particularly in areas where cultural and religious differences were great.

67 See Bosanquet, ‘Patriotism’, pp. 136–7, 150; Brown, C. (ed.), Nardin, T., and Rengger, N. (eds), International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 468Google Scholar .

68 See Boucher, ‘British Idealism’, p. 674; Bosanquet, ‘Patriotism’, pp. 152–4.

69 See Boucher, ‘British Idealism’, p. 678; Hutchings, Kimberly, International Political Theory: Rethinking Ethics in a Global Era (London: Sage, 1999), pp. 91–120Google Scholar .

70 Morefield, Covenants Without Swords, p. 19.

71 Murray, ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, p. 697.

72 Murray, Liberality and Civilization, p. 57.

73 Liberality is an archaic term to modern ears. Murray in all probability acquired it from Thucydides. It appears, for example, in translations of Pericles’ funeral oration. See, for example, Brown et al., International Relations in Political Thought, p. 39.

74 Murray, ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, p. 682.

75 Murray, Liberality and Civilization, p. 16.

76 And in principle in all countries. Francis West makes the interesting point that whereas liberalism, for Murray, was primarily a British affair, liberality was international. West, Gilbert Murray, pp. 198–9.

77 See Jahn, Beate, ‘Classical Smoke, Classical Mirror: Kant and Mill in Liberal International Relations Theory’, in Jahn, B. (ed.), Classical Theory in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 199–200Google Scholar ; and Richardson, ‘Contending Liberalisms’, pp. 10–1.

78 Murray, ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, p. 683.

79 Murray did not explain how this could be squared with liberalism's commitment to democracy. Supposing the demos did not want ‘progress’? Murray, ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, p. 683.

80 Murray, Liberality and Civilization, p. 28.

81 Ibid., pp. 59–60.

82 Murray, ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, pp. 685.

83 Ibid., pp. 688–9.

84 Ibid., pp. 689, 696.

85 Murray, Liberality and Civilization, pp. 63–5. In this respect Murray inverts the thinking of contemporary ‘rational choice’ liberals who assume that states are utility-maximising entities and observe that institutions can change states’ calculations about how to maximise their gains. ‘Specifically, rules can get states to make short-term sacrifices needed to resolve the prisoners’ dilemma and thus to realise long-term gains’ (Mearsheimer, John L., ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’, International Security, 19:3 (1994–1995), p. 18)Google Scholar . Not all states in Murray's view were utility maximising, only less-civilised states. More-civilised states possessed and encouraged a spirit of self-sacrifice. This was not an effect of institutions but a precondition of their successful operation – which in turn was necessary for maximising the common good and establishing ‘cosmos’. Murray's thinking fits well into Reus-Smit's category of ‘classical liberal international political theory’ in that his liberalism was both explanatory and normative, containing an account of the nature of international politics and a normative philosophy (in contrast to neo-liberal theory which, with its sparring partner neo-realism, effectively abandons political argument by relegating normative reflection from the realm of legitimate social scientific enquiry and embracing ‘a rationalist conception of agency that reduces all political action to strategic interaction’ Reus-Smit, Christian, ‘The Strange Death of Liberal International Theory’, European Journal of International Law, 12:3 (2001), pp. 573–585)Google Scholar .

86 Toynbee, Arnold, ‘The Unity of Gilbert Murray's Life and Work’, in Smith, and Toynbee, , Unfinished Autobiography, p. 212Google Scholar .

87 Quoted in West, Gilbert Murray, p. 156.

88 Quoted in Wilson, Gilbert Murray, p. 399.

89 Ceadel, ‘Murray and International Politics’, p. 220.

90 For example, Murray, Ordeal, p. 39, pp. 196–7; Liberality and Civilization, p. 91; From League to UN, p. 62 (‘The very essence of good life is service’).

91 ‘To make a true Cosmos, a true moral and spiritual order, there must be something higher in the world than men as we now know them; there must be those ideals and inspirations, that “something not ourselves making for righteousness,” for which the ancients used their inadequate word θέοι, or “Gods”.’ Murray, Liberality and Civilization, pp. 43–4.

92 See, for example, Murray, ‘What Liberalism Stands For’, p. 695.

93 ‘[T]he great instrument of persuasion, the great substitute for violence, is the Logos’. Murray, , Hellenism and the Modern World (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1953), p. 27Google Scholar .

94 Murray cited in Stapleton, ‘Classicist as Liberal Intellectual’, p. 266.

95 Murray, , Aristophanes: A Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), p. 107Google Scholar .

96 Murray, , ‘The Value of Greece to the Future of the World’, in Livingston, R. W. (ed.), The Legacy of Greece (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921)Google Scholar .

97 Murray was fond of Pericles’ statement: ‘The Athenians love beauty, but have not luxurious tastes; they cultivate the mind without any loss of manliness.’ Quoted in Murray, Hellenism and the Modern World, p. 38.

98 Carr, E. H., ‘An Autobiography’, in Cox, M. (ed.), E. H. Carr, p. xivGoogle Scholar .

99 Hirst, Murray and Hammond, Liberalism and the Empire.

100 Boucher, ‘British Idealism’, pp. 681–4. Yet here as in other areas the influence of Mill and Gladstone should not be discounted. In the mid-nineteenth century they championed the virtues of the Greek cf. Roman models of empire, seeing a progressive, liberal spirit in the former not present in the (authoritarian) latter. Murray was a major voice in the return to Greece as an inspiration for a new conception of British imperial unity following the decline of ideas for a US-inspired ‘Greater Britain’ in the late nineteenth century. See Bell, Duncan, ‘From Ancient to Modern in Victorian Imperial Thought’, The Historical Journal, 49:3 (2006), pp. 743–744, 758–759Google Scholar ; and more generally his magisterial The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). See also Jahn, Beate, ‘Barbarian Thoughts: Imperialism in the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill’, Review of International Studies, 31:3 (2005), pp. 601–607Google Scholar .

101 Murray, Ordeal, p. 31. The difficulty for individuals habituated to violence to return to normality, and the ease with which it is possible to become a ‘war junky’, has recently been highlighted by Canon Andrew White (the ‘vicar of Baghdad’). Hear his fascinating account at: {www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/thechoice} (first broadcast 9 September 2008).

102 Note in this context Mill's assertion, perhaps typical for a long-serving administrator, that all civilised life depends on ‘continuous labour of an unexciting kind’. Quoted in Jahn, ‘Barabarian Thoughts’, p. 601.

103 Murray, Ordeal, pp. 31–3, 36–7, 177–81; From League to UN, pp. 34–7, 45–6, 95–6, pp. 124–5; Aristophanes, p. 15, pp. 22–3, pp. 69–70, p. 165.

104 For example, Murray, Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, pp. 55, 58–9, 82; Ordeal, pp. 149–50; From League to UN, pp. 17–41; Hellenism and the Modern World, pp. 52–60. Murray publicly supported Eden's intervention in Suez regarding Nasser as an anti-Western conspirator. See Ceadel, ‘Murray and International Politics’, p. 237.

105 See, further, Wilson, ‘Retrieving Cosmos’, p. 251.

106 The same could be said of Alfred Zimmern, a protégé of Murray and fellow internationalist and ICIC member, whose The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth-Century Athens, five editions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911–31) remained the most comprehensive and popular introduction to the Hellenic world until the publication of Kitto, H. D. F., The Greeks (London: Pelican, 1951)Google Scholar .

107 See West, Gilbert Murray, pp. 132–8; Wilson, Gilbert Murray, pp. 153–6; Murray, ‘Value of Greece’, pp. 13–6. Murray's criticisms did not extend far even when, late in life, he recognised that the Hellenistic ideal was ‘a good deal different from the reality on which it is based’ (Murray, Hellenism and the Modern World, p. 20).

108 For example, Murray, Liberality and Civilization, p. 62.

109 Murray, ‘Value of Greece’, pp. 18–9.

110 See, for example, Hall, John, Powers and Liberties (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986)Google Scholar .

111 Holbraad, Carsten, Internationalism and Nationalism in European Political Thought (New York: Palgrave, 2003), p. 1Google Scholar .

112 Iriye, Cultural Internationalism, p. 3.

113 8 Oct 1921. Quoted in Madariaga, ‘Murray and the League’, p. 189.

114 8 Sept 1921. Quoted in Madariaga, ‘Murray and the League’, p. 189.

115 Murray to Lady Mary, 22 Sept 1921. Quoted in Madariaga, ‘Murray and the League’, p. 190.

116 Murray, From League to UN, p. 199.

117 Ibid., p. 200.

118 Ibid., p. 200.

119 Ibid., p. 200.

120 Ibid., p. 201.

121 Quoted in Iriye, Cultural Internationalism, p. 57. The early cultural internationalists, Iriye argues, ‘believed that theirs was not a naïve vision of a utopian community but a realistic proposal for avoiding nationalist excesses’ (p. 10). Ultimately they believed peace and order rested on the development of a cooperative habit of mind among individuals in all countries – what Leonard Woolf called ‘communal internationalist psychology’ (see, Wilson, International Theory of Leonard Woolf, pp. 44–8).

122 Murray provides a useful overview of the work of these two bodies in Appendix III to From League to UN, pp. 202–14. See also Gowdy, Rachel, ‘Humanitarian Activities of the League of Nations’, International Affairs, 6:3 (1927), pp. 153–169Google Scholar ; Northedge, F. S., The League of Nations: Its Life and Times 1920–1946 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1988), pp. 186–189Google Scholar .

123 Murray, From League to UN, p. 211.

124 Murray cited in Morefield, Covenants Without Swords, p. 149.

125 Including an international survey conducted by the Institute, a series of conferences organised by the Royal Historical Society, an international conference of French and German historians held in 1930, and annual conferences of teachers in subjects such as History, Geography, Modern Languages and Civics. See Murray, From League to UN, pp. 204–5; Iriye, Cultural Internationalism, pp. 72–6.

126 Murray, From League to UN, p. 208. See also Iriye, Cultural Internationalism, pp. 70–2.

127 The classic early account was provided by Woolf, Leonard in International Government (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916), esp. Part II, pp. 89–230Google Scholar . See also Reinsch, Paul, Public International Unions, Their Work and Organisation (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1911)Google Scholar ; and Schmidt, ‘Paul S. Reinsch’, pp. 43–70.

128 Murray, Ordeal, p. 197.

129 See Northedge, League of Nations, pp. 169–74.

130 Murray, Ordeal, p. 191.

131 Preamble to UNESCO constitution, cited in Iriye, Cultural Internationalism, p. 147.

132 Murray regarded Victorian civilisation as ‘very splendid’ and he found unpalatable the tendency of modern liberals to mock it. He took it for granted – here again no doubt influenced by Mill – that some cultures/nations/civilisations were superior to others, that it was natural to think of them in terms of their relative superiority/inferiority, and that the advanced nations had a duty to assist the development of the backward. By the 1930s these characteristically Victorian, hierarchical, and paternalist beliefs were beginning to look antiquated. ‘My Dear Monument’, began one letter from his Fabian friend, Margaret Cole (quoted in West, Murray, pp. 234–7). For Murray's hierarchical view of the world, with a benign Britain at the top, see, for example, Murray, Satanism, pp. 33–46. For Murray's idealisation of the Victorian era see, for example, Murray, Hellenism, pp. 53–4. For Mill's paternalism, based on similarly hierarchical view of the world, see Jahn, ‘Classical Smoke’, pp. 191–201.

133 Murray, Hellenism, p. 5, pp. 52–60.

134 This is one area in which Murray parts company with Mill, whose outlook is more genuinely cosmopolitan. See Jahn, ‘Barbarian Thoughts’, pp. 614–5.

135 See, for example, Murray, Hellenism, p. 5.

136 See Jahn, ‘Barabarian Thoughts’, pp. 603–7; Jahn, ‘Classical Smoke’, pp. 193–7.

137 And typical of nineteenth century political liberalism – dedicated to the promotion of equal opportunity but not at the cost of radically disturbing the established order. See Richardson, ‘Contending Liberalisms’, pp. 14–5.

138 Murray, From League to UN, pp. 211, 214.

139 See, Bruneau, William and Wodell, Russell, ‘Yours Obediently, Gilbert Murray: Letters to The Times’, in Stray, (ed.), Murray Reassessed, pp. 319–348Google Scholar .

140 1 November 1938. MSS Gilbert Murray, Box 365, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Sir Frank Heath was Honorary Secretary of the British National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.

141 Murray, Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, p. 124.

142 Madariaga, ‘Gilbert Murray and the League’, p. 184.

143 See Hinsley, F. H., Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations between States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 62–91Google Scholar .