Introduction

Felix Rosch

pp. 1-18

in: Felix Rosch (ed), Émigré scholars and the genesis of international relations, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of American International Relations: A European Discipline in America? invites students of International Relations (IR) to return to the discipline's modern foundation during the early and mid-twentieth century and to reconsider the contribution of Continental European émigré scholars. Its intention is to break the silence that has befallen émigré scholarship in Anglophone IR, since the dominance of American positivism (Maliniak 2011: 439) has been challenged by various forms of critical scholarship. Generally, these challenges do not consider the Continental European context in which many of the early IR scholars were socialised. In reconsidering the lives and thoughts of émigré scholars, IR students will find three aspects particularly beneficial: they are encouraged to question the usual trajectories of IR as an American discipline, to reflect upon émigré scholars' thought as an enrichment of world political theorising in the twenty-first century, and to enhance discussions of intercultural knowledge exchange by moving beyond conceptualisations of imposition towards amalgamation.