International studies: retrospect and prospect

In 1919 the world's first chair in international politics was founded at Aberystwyth. Now fifty-six years later a British Journal of International Studies achieves publication. The journal is timely – even overdue. It has predecessors of high quality in the United States, in Canada, in India, in Norway and in many other countries. The subject is taught widely in Europe, in Japan and many countries of Asia, in Africa and Latin America, more recently in Eastern Europe, and throughout the United States; but in the United Kingdom, though it is represented in some twenty-four universities and in several polytechnics, it is taught extensively only in eight of these institutions. It seemed appropriate, in the first number of the new journal, to review the somewhat hesitant cultivation of the field in this country, and to consider how the subject generally appears to be moving. The paper accordingly begins with a quick survey of evolution n i a changing historical context, examines recent explorations of methodology and expansion of range, and makes some comments about directions of advance which in the opinion of the writer seem promising or likely to be fruitful.