No-one seriously doubts the importance of E. H. Carr in the history of the study of international relations. The publication of The Twenty Years' “Crisis, 1919–1939, in 1939 marked a turning point in international theory, ending, as it did in Britain, the dominance of the more traditional ‘pro-gressivist’ or ‘idealist’ schools of thought characterized in the writings of, for example, Norman Angell, Bertrand Russell, Alfred Zimmern, Arnold Toynbee, G. Lowes Dickinson and others. The bulk of Carr's work in the field was written in the twenty or so years between 1936 (when he accepted the Woodrow Wilson Chair of International Politics at Aberystwyth) and 1955 (when he accepted a Fellowship at Trinity, his old Cambridge College), and since then his energies have been concentrated on his abiding concern with the history of Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, he is still an important figure in the field and although international relations has not been his life' work, his unique contribution to its understanding, ensures him a permanent place in the British tradition of international studies.

To reduce, and ultimately stabilize at lower levels, the rate of price inflation is rapidly becoming the main economic objective of all industrialized countries. For policy makers inflation is currently a problem as serious as was the problem of unemployment during the inter-war years. Yet, governments' attempts to control inflation have not on the whole been successful. This relative failure may well be attributed to a wrong diagnosis of the nature of the problem, leading to the application of inappropriate cures. Economists have advanced a variety of diagnoses of the causes of inflation which have provided the bases for various policy prescriptions. Essentially, however, there are two schools of thought.

The first difficulty facing an enquiry into the Richardson theory, apart from the quirky and unconventional style of Richardson's own presentation of his ideas (and I am emphatically not referring to his use of mathematics), is to decide precisely what the theory refers to. Richardson seems first to formulate his model in terms of the relationship between the rate at which a state acquires additional armaments and the level or stock of armaments at that moment in time in its possession and that of its presumed, probable opponent. He does this, reasonably enough, by connecting the rate at which each state acquires armaments directly and positively to the level of its opponent's stock of armaments and negatively to its own, and to a term independent of the size of stocks.

It is probably fair to say that the work of Professor Richard Rosecrance represents the outstanding attempt of recent years to produce a general model of international relations and the making of foreign policies, based on the evidence of historical research. His book Action and “Reaction in World Politics drew inductively from the historical evolution of the international system an analysis of the processes of that system. His latest book, International Relations: Peace or War?, summarizes the historical analysis of the earlier work and elaborates on its general discussion of foreign policy making, especially by drawing upon recent theoretical work by other authors. In both these books Rosecrance tries to explain the developments of international politics in terms of the long historical perspective, to show how fundamental changes in the nature of states and the international environment have altered the nature of relationships between states. The question to be explored here is the viability of Rosecrance's model and his explanations, examined in the light of a particular historical development which he

On Sunday 2 August 1914 the Liberal prime minister, Asquith, received a note from Bonar Law and Lord Lansdowne in which the Conservative leaders offered their ‘unhesitating support’ to the Government in any measures it might consider necessary for the object of supporting France and Russia. Of this communication the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, wrote in his memoirs: “The message was first read and then laid aside; it could have no influence on our discussion. ” In a recent article, Donald Lammers has concluded that “the state of our information does not justify ascribing a high or determining importance to Conservative statements and actions in connection with the British decision to go to war”. In doing so he has added his name to those of Robert Blake, Roy Jenkins, Keith Robbins, Samuel Williamson and Cameron Hazlehurst, who have in his words maintained that “the Conservative letter counted for almost nothing and the relentless march of events almost everything in the way of changing or settling ministerial minds” in the European crisis of late July and early August 1914.

Since the end of World War II social commentators have attempted to explain why Germany was so susceptible to Nazi rule. One sociologist has argued that the social structure that existed in Germany at the end of the First World War made it likely that Germany would take a totalitarian rather than a democratic road to modernity. Others have argued that the breakdown of the stratification system permitted the Nazis to prey upon the fears of the newly atomized individuals who joined in the mass movement. Still other studies have focused either on the whole country or on the different regions to explore in detail how the Nazi movement grew and which elements of the population were most prone to join it. These works have ranged from descriptive case studies to more analytic, but conflicting, voting studies. But the analyses of the mass represent only one half of the equation which may explain why the Nazis came to power and, perhaps more significantly, why they managed to retain the loyalty of the populace even when it was apparent that Germany would lose the war that the Nazis initiated. The other part of the equation is Adolf Hitler whose “ability not only to win over the majority of the German people, but to lead them so completely astray, has no precedent in history”. No other revolutionary mass movement, neither bolshevism in Russia nor communism in China, has been so much the product of its leader as was national socialism in Germany.

For those who believed that the Vietnam war ‘ended’ in January 1973 with the signing of the Paris agreements, the events of the spring of 1975 must have come as a profound shock. Alternatively, for those who believed that the Paris agreements were no more than a pause on the way to the inevitable, these same events would seem to be eminently predictable. The implications of the American defeat in South East Asia are clearly a matter for the long term and one does no more than state the obvious by saying that the long term implications have yet to unfold. However, even from the short term perspective, there is much one can say about the Vietnam conflict, in terms of both its internal consequences and its impact on America and international society. Over the years, Vietnam has been held to be responsible for the end of Lyndon Johnson's career, for the so-called ‘Great Society’, for the growth of student radicalism and civil unrest. Whether and to what extent any or all of these links can be demonstrated are questions for the future. What of the present? In surveying the events of the spring of 1975 one recalls the words of Thomas Paine, written almost two centuries ago: “These are the times that try men's souls”. The point is not without a certain irony in the present context, for the American bicentennial celebrations which began in Concord, Massachusetts, were overshadowed by the scenes of evacuation and collapse in South East Asia.