Realpolitik: A History

Well worth the purchase price. In some ways it reminds me of the Keobner and Schmit 'Imperialism' I read years ago that took a term of concept and looked at its changing meanings. I'm going to look for more from the same author.

A well thorough researched book, Brew has done justice to a term, often misused for other purposes. The book offers extensive amounts of information about the history of the term, and whom used it.

Excellent book, a lot of information for the layman on the subject of geopolitics and realpolitiks, how the term evolved and how it was applied through the ages. Some of the discussion is quite advanced and it is now a privilege to be able in analyse in detail some of the decisions of world politics and how they came about.

This smart, black hardback with a high impact sleeve is one of those books that you just have to pick up and when you do it doesn't let you down!The paper isn't quite white but the text is black and big enough to make it quite readable in mixed lighting.Realpolitik looks at the origins of the word and the system going back to the mid nineteenth century and tracing its evolution and impact over that period.Tracing its development through Bismarck and Rochau there is an in depth look at the run up to the Great War, the period between the wars, before considering the post second world period.. There is a discussion of Détente and the impact of Kissinger and then the post cold war period.. The book concludes with extensive endnotes, a full and comprehensive bibliography and a very helpful index.This fast flowing thesis is full of facts, ideas and concepts that will engage your brain and stretch your thinking. If you love modern history or politics this book will scratch both itches and introduce you to big picture thinking that will help you capture some of the ways our world works. Ultimately this book calls for a return to the foundations of Realpolitik - something that can only happen if we understand it in the first place - which is what this book will do for you! The impact on foreign policy decisions using Realpolitik is something the author wants to see more strongly and as you plough through this substantive (but not onerous) 395 page treatise it will help you on your way to better understand the issues.A thoroughly recommended read that you will revisit again and again. It will also be a great resource for students who will find the basis of a couple of good essays inside the covers.

The term realpolitik is a much misused term. It can and has been confused with the national interest with the use of military force, and, as Bew says, it is usually expressed as the opposite of moral and ideological approaches to foreign policy. Bew who teaches at my alma mater, makes it clear in this interesting account that realpolitik suffers badly from multiple meanings. Many historians use it to simply mean expedience or power. Such usage often implies that a policy based on realism pays little regard to international law or ethics.The tradition of realism is usually traced back to Thucydides. Since 1918 realists like E.H.Carr, Kennan, and Kissinger have been prominent as scholar-practitioners. Realist arguments frequently recur in discussions of international relations. Some argue it is an exaggerated and one-sided set of insights rather than a general theory. It is seen as a negative highlighting of recurrent constraints posed by international anarchy and selfishness. What is undeniable is that realsm is an inescapable feature of international relations. Six paradigms stand out: Hobbes, Morgenthau, Waltz, the Prisoners' Dilemma, Thucydides and Machiavelli. Fear, honour and interest or competition, diffidence and glory are emphasised as motives by Thucydides and Hobbes. It is often overlooked that both of these give considerable space to ethics.It is a very prescriptive doctrine. Bew tries hard to decode the problem. As the author of ' Castlereagh' he is well versed in the use of realism in foreign policy. Here he focuses on the evolution of the word realpolitik. He distinguishes the word from realism showing that realpolitik was first used by August Ludwig von Rochau in 1853 in his book Foundations of Realpolitik. In it he argued that German unification could only be attained by realpolitik, not by politics based on ethics or sentiment.The author argues that the word became distorted by writers such as Treitschke who was a notorious anti-Semite. He dreamed of a German Empire that would challenge Britain and France. Bew quotes him arguing that ' international law is mere clap-trap......'. It was Meinecke who was responsible for fusing the term with raison d'etat. By 1900, realpolitik had become to mean the same as realism, as opposed to idealism.Bew gives eight lessons of real realpolitik. These he says are obtained from Rochau. They are all very banal. Much more interesting, particularly for those who have immersed themselves in post 1945 American foreign policy and strategy, is the examination of the work and writings of Morgenthau and Wolfers. These and others, like Kissinger, established the power politics school of International Relations after WW2. Bew exposes the many myths that pervade this school of thought. Bew next discusses the so-called Anglo-American tradition. He pays a tribute to this alternative to European realism. In so doing he shows that both Britain and the US have tried to promote both ideals and national interests.Politicians use language that suits their agenda. Realism and idealism are just two examples. Bew blames scholars of International Relations for politicians' ignorance of the derivation of Realpolitik. He says, following the Cambridge school approach, that political ideas and discourse should be understood ' in the context of the historical period era in which they were used'. True but hardly novel.The book is structured as follows: part one is an act of discovery. It aims to uncover the origins of Realpolitik; part two examines how the term has been used in discourse between Britain and America. The latter aims to find a window into 'the soul of.... the Anglo-American worldview'.. In so doing, Bew examines the importance of Bismarck, the inter war period, geopolitics, the Cold War and the new world order.Realpolitic or realism cannot be ignored but it should not be allowed to shape the study and practice of international relations. This book again demonstrates that IR suffers greatly from the ambiguity of its subject matter. It also tells this reviewer that idealism and realism are still fundamentally at odds with one another. Each has a different assessment of human nature. Any consensus smacks of artificiality. Sentiment sits uneasily with power and anarchy.This is a well written account by a sound historian of an important word in the lexicon of historians. At times the journey of discovery is a little laborious. A little culling here and there would have made the journey more appealing. Nevertheless, students, particularly those of International Relations, will find this book a valuable insight into realpolitik and it's use over the past 150 years.There are notes and a short bibliography.

Realpolitik is not a word I'd ever put much thought into before, thinking it was basically about the end justifying the means - particularly when the means ends up being expensive and destructive. So this excellent book was a fascinating revelation - and a lesson in politics as well as history.It is academic in content, in that it is well-researched and very thorough - but it is also a very accessible and interesting read, unlike so much academic writing.The book takes you from Machiavelli, via Napoleon to Kissinger - and that is a combination to consider all by itself! But the book covers far more than that. It is a master class in recent European and American history and it comes with 31 pages of notes (references) and a 19 page bibliography, and it would make an outstanding modern history text - for school or university.

John Bew has written a book that is really needed today - a history of the origins and development of one of the most pervasive approaches to handling politics and international relations: realpolitik. Brew combines a scrupulous and scholarly approach with refreshing readability. This is highly recommended to both general readers and students.​

An excellent book setting the record straight on a term that is often used but little understood. The connect between Realpolitik and liberal nationalism was extremely interesting.

Concise material and good historical information. Delivered in time.

A little extensive the description of Realpolitiks origin. But, a very interesting history of recent ideological background of contemporary great powers foreign policy.

Well done.

Perhaps the title misleads, but this is not precisely a history of Realpolitik. It does not trace the intrinsic nature of power relations in the shadows over political realism and covert political machinations in real time. In that regard it is a disappointment. It fails to enact the very process that it proposes to represent; hard truth about what drivers exist in the backrooms of reality. Not what is said but what is done. The book, instead, is the history of an idea and it follows a stage of actors that presumably represent its practical existence in the world of professional diplomacy. Intellectually impressive; ...but just as the original criticism demonstrates that ideals fail in real time, so too does the ideal model presented fail to live up to its own standards of empirical critique or comprehensive measures of the hidden dimensions in disclosing raw power in the relations of Nations and Actors. Disappointing and one dimensional despite its intellectual presentation.