The International History Review

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Re-thinking Nicholas J. Spykman: from historical

sociology to balance of power

Antero Holmila

To cite this article: Antero Holmila (2019): Re-thinking Nicholas J. Spykman: from
historical sociology to balance of power, The International History Review, DOI:
10.1080/07075332.2019.1655469

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2019.1655469

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THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW
https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2019.1655469

Re-thinking Nicholas J. Spykman: from historical sociology to

balance of power
Antero Holmila
Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyv€askyl€a, Jyv€askyl€a, Finland

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article examines Nicholas J. Spykman’s scholarship beyond geopolit- Geopolitics; historical
ics and International Relations (IR). Because his works have mainly been sociology; Nicholas
studied through these prisms, I argue that we have overlooked the J. Spykman; rimland;
containment; isolationism;
most important underlying current of his work: historical sociology. As a internationalism; historical
result, the prevailing view of him is overtly narrow. When Spykman’s turn; balance of power
scholarly output is examined from the 1920s to 1940s, an entirely differ-
ent view of Spykman emerges. Essentially, his fundamental understand-
ing of world affairs derived from the German sociologist Georg Simmel’s
theories. In the 1920s and 1930s, Spykman transmuted these underpin-
nings into IR that later in the 1940s guided his two major works:
America’s Strategy in World Politics and posthumously published The
Geography of the Peace. Moreover, his magnum opus, America’s Strategy,
was not primarily about geopolitics but a forceful contribution to the
American debate between isolationism and internationalism. His main
goal was to make the Americans understand that geography with its
links to economic and military matters made isolationism a futile
approach to US national security. This article will contribute to a more
multidisciplinary appreciation of his work highlighting his significance
and impact by showing how his scholarship reached beyond
geopolitics.

… to call him only a geopolitician would mean underrating his scholarly versatility …
Hans Haas in Social Forces (1942)1

Introduction
Recently, geopolitics has globally re-emerged as an important frame of analysis in a variety of
disciplines, including International Relations (IR) and History.2 As part of the return of geopolitics,
scholars have re-kindled their interest in the writings of the Dutch-born American scholar
Nicholas John Spykman (1893–1943), the founder of the Yale Institute of International Studies in
1935 and best-known for his geopolitical concept of rimland: ‘Who controls the rimland rules
Eurasia; who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world’.3 While the rediscovery of

CONTACT Antero Holmila [email protected]

ß 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
2 A. HOLMILA

Spykman is both commendable and perhaps long overdue, it is mainly characterized by the
same tendency that has shaped his reputation since the end of World War Two: geopolitics.
The purpose of this article is to rethink Spykman’s writings on world affairs in a different light.
First, I will show that in order to have a more complete understanding of Spykman’s arguments,
especially put forward in his two major books, America’s Strategy in World Politics (1942) and The
Geography of the Peace (1944), we must examine them in the context of his long-term scholar-
ship instead of ex post facto frame of Cold War containment. Secondly, I will examine these
books in the historical context of their making when American politics and society was
embroiled in fundamentally important national debate between isolationism and international-
ism. What is more, isolationism and internationalism were not only political or ideological con-
cepts (isms) but they were also geographical constructs often based on simplistic assumptions
about American relative safety from the troubled Eurasian littoral – the tendency Spykman
fought hard to debunk.
Spykman’s diverse understanding of world affairs stemmed from his personal experiences in
the Near East (1913–1919) and in the Far East (1919–1920) and was furthered by his studies at
Berkeley in the early 1920s, in the field of historical sociology as a disciple of Frederick J.
Teggart, who had studied historical geography and social institutions.4 As I will show throughout
this article, all Spykman’s works, spanning the period of nearly quarter of century, were rooted
into sociology of Georg Simmel (1858–1918), particularly on his functional-pragmatic views of
society whether in terms of power relations, conflict, reconciliation or processes of socialization.
Yet, the major paradox about Spykman lies in the fact that while his reputation today is based
on geopolitics and IR realism, these epistemological foundations have barely been noted.
Further, his contemporaries also viewed him differently. Hans Haas, a political scientist from
Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, captured the essence when he argued that Spykman
was not just a geopolitician but also ‘a first-rate, if not the best, contemporary geographer, his-
torian, and political strategist all in one’.5 Yet, subsequently these diverse assessments of
Spykman have disappeared, implying that today’s scholars have largely neglected Spykman’s
early writings and focusing on a narrow area such as ‘rimland’. Such focus is indicative about the
strength of Cold War ethos and Spykman’s utility in the era which sought to find frameworks
and models of containment but it does not do justice to Spykman’s diversity, for whom geopolit-
ics was only a means to an end, not an end in itself. What is more, even his most direct geopol-
itical utterances relied on sociological premises that have hitherto only rarely been discussed.6
To start with, I will briefly examine the ways in which Spykman has been considered in the his-
toriography of IR and Geopolitics, as it underscores the reasons why re-thinking Spykman in a
multidisciplinary context is needed.

Historiography without history: Spykman, international relations and geopolitics

According to Colin S. Gray’s recent assertion, Spykman ‘has been apparently air-brushed even
from scholarly, let alone more popular works on history, politics and strategy’.7 On the one hand,
his statement hits receptive chord especially if Spykman is contrasted with other better-known
early realists and contemporary thinkers on geography and power politics including Halford
Mackinder, George F. Kennan, E.H. Carr, Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau. On the other,
Gray’s claim is nevertheless exaggerated since it is also plausible to argue that in many areas of
thought he never disappeared. Writing at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s, IR
scholars like Edgar S. Furniss, Ernest B. Haas and Ladis Kristof among others recognized
Spykman’s contribution. In 1960, Kenneth W. Thompson named him as a scholar who together
with Niebuhr, Carr and Morgenthau played ‘the decisive role’ in the development of
International Relations.8 Finally, during the heyday of the Cold War years, Spykman’s rimland the-
sis formed the geopolitical foundation for the containment to the extent that Geoffrey Parker
was compelled to name it as ‘Spykman–Kennan thesis of containment’. Finally, in professional
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 3

cold warrior cadres, Spykman’s views also featured as a longstanding stable in the curriculum of
the Industrial College of the Armed Forces’ ‘Natinonal Security Seminar’.9
In line with ‘historical turn’ in IR, there has been an uptick on ‘the US hegemony question’
and historical origins of IR as a scholarly discipline and as a consequence Spykman has also
received more attention.10 Nevertheless, he is almost exclusively considered from a geopolitical
framework. Jeremy Black’s recent work is a fair illustration: ‘Spykman developed a “rimland the-
sis”, an idea, based on Mackinder’s marginal or inner crescent, which gave geopolitical focus to
his concern about the dynamic geopolitics of Eurasia’.11 In contrast, Olivier Zajec’s biography
Nicholas John Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine (2016) remains the only full-
length study of Spykman’s career. Importantly, Zajec’s starting point is simmelian sociology. 12
Yet, the extent to which Simmel’s sociology explicitly underlined Spykman’s work is difficult to
ascertain since Spykman never directly referred to Simmel. Therefore, while Simmel ‘was there’, I
will place additional importance to Spykman’s anti-isolationist position at Yale as the key to
understand his geopolitical thinking. In existing literature, Paulo Jorge Batista Ramos’ dissertation
‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies in the Construction of the United States
National Security Ideology, 1935–1951’, is the only full-length study in which Spykman’s work is
examined within the institutional setting of Yale and thus also is valuable for this article.13
The major oversight in geopolitical reading of Spykman is that his views are often read back-
wards, meaning that analysis of Spykman’s contributions starts with the Geography of the Peace
and ends with America’s Strategy, spanning roughly two years while foregoing the previous two
decades, leading to a ahistorical decontextualized view of Spykman. Illuminating this tendency,
Campbell Craig has written: ‘I regard Niebuhr’s emphasis upon political and moral philosophy to
have been fundamentally more influential upon American Cold War Realism than was Spykman’s
much more geopolitical work’.14 Meanwhile, in his introduction to the Geography of War and
Peace, Colin Flint has written: ‘if there is one single purpose to this book, it is to debunk
Nicholas Spykman’s belief that “Geography is the most important factor in foreign policy because
it is the most permanent”. The quote is illuminating because of its inaccuracy’.15 While such
arguments seeks to engage with critical geography in the (justified) quest to expose the futility
of geographical determinism, placing Spykman into such category distorts his much broader
scholarly basis for the convenience of an argument. For example, even a cursory look of his
argumentation from the late 1930s could hardly be labeled as deterministic:
It should be emphasized, however, that geography has been described as a conditioning rather than as a
determining factor [ … ] It was not meant to imply that geographic characteristics play a deterministic, causal
role in foreign policy. The geographical determinism which explains by geography all things from the fourth
symphony to the fourth dimension paints as distorted a picture as does an explanation of policy with no
reference to geography. The geography of a country is rather the material for, than the cause, of its policy.16

As the passage shows, and it could be repeated many times over, he was more versatile in
his writings than the dominant perspectives would make us believe. On balance, there has
always been a minority, which has been aware of Spykman’s diverse work. For example, Edgar S.
Furniss Jr. was already suggesting in 1952 that over-hasty readings of Spykman’s America’s
Strategy ignored what he had written before the war; and the same tendency applies today.17
While Rosenboim has recently noted that Spykman’s work was clearly multidisciplinary, what fol-
lows here is an examination of how that was the case, how his multidisciplinarity is discernable
and what were the very reasons for his intellectual positioning. The focus will shift from geopolit-
ics to Spykman’s historical sociology.18

Spykman and the sociology of international relations

In 1920, Spykman arrived at Berkely with ‘an ambition to prepare himself for a career in which
he would be able to contribute to a better understanding of world affairs’.19 In 1923, he earned
4 A. HOLMILA

his doctorate which was subsequently published by the University of Chicago Press in 1925
under the title The Social Theory of Georg Simmel.20 Spykman’s entry into academia was persua-
sive and his work partly helped to situate American sociology in the rapidly expanding field of
social sciences. Albion W. Small, the reviewer of the book and the don of American sociology in
the early twentieth century, noted with enthusiasm that ‘[t]he author’s Preface alone should
cause drastic searchings of heart among the Americans who call themselves social scientists’ and
in the ‘Conclusion the author packs some rare words of wisdom’.21 Yet, under the influence of
his PhD supervisor, Frederick J. Teggart, Spykman’s object of inquiry moved into international
sociology – a turn not surprising given his own personal experiences in Asia and the Middle
East. In 1933, Spykman claimed that his view of international relations was a form of sociological
enquiry, holding that the concept of society, applies for the international society too.22 The basis
for such claim was particularly seen in two of his early articles, ‘The Social Background of Asiatic
Nationalism’, published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1926 and ‘United States and the
Allied Debts’ published by a German journal in 1929.23
The former was a discussion of power relations between ‘Western imperialism’ and ‘Asiatic
nationalism’, drawing from (albeit implicitly) Simmel’s sociology. In the context of orient-occident
cultural interaction Spykman wrote:
Contact between different cultures always leads to disturbances in the realms of ideas and to
reconsideration of accepted values. This is especially the case if two cultures are very dissimilar. It would be
hard to conceive two worlds farther apart than the dynamic, aggressive West and the passive
contemplative East.24

Here, Spykman’s dichotomy relied on Simmel’s concept of strangers which held that separate
populations originally inhabits their own living spaces but the arrival of the stranger (in this case
the Western powers), shattered the native culture’s sense of universalism by exposing it as pro-
vincial. ‘The primitive community’, Spykman wrote, lost ‘much of its self-contained exclusive-
ness’.25 Next, the arrival of stranger which Simmel had conceptualized as ‘the one who comes
today and stays tomorrow’, changes the economic pattern of the native society since the new
capitalistic ‘strangers’ bring in structures which are permanent. The same was observed by
Spykman when he wrote that ‘[t]he capitalistic invasion caused an agrarian revolution and
changed agrarian production from a natural economy to a pecuniary economy [ … ] The fact
that the capital employed is of foreign origin causes a permanent drain’.26 According to Olivier
Zajec, the article was a ‘transposition’ of Simmel’s Philosophie des Geldes into the realm of inter-
national sociology’.27 Overall, the article illustrated ‘that the structures of these revolt movements
were more complex than a simple schema of opposition between Western imperialism and indi-
genous nationalism would suggest’.28 The key word here is ‘opposition’ which he had discussed
at length in his dissertation.29 In 1942, the same foundation was found in America’s Strategy: ‘In
international society, as in other social groupings, there are observable three basic processes of
co-operation, accommodation and opposition. Not only individuals and groups but also states
maintain the tree types of social relations’.30 These lines exemplify Spykman’s fundamental
understanding of IR as functional processes that are constantly moving and negotiated. Further,
there is very little room for determinism in such vision.
Following Asian-West relations, the second of his tow early articles moved the geographical
lens to transatlantic relations and international political economy in his article ‘United States and
the Allied Debts’, published by a new Heidelberg-based journal Zeitschrift f€ ur auslandisches
€ffentliches Rech und volkerrecht in 1929.31 The article is significant for it was the first one in
o
which Spykman grapples with US foreign policy. While the piece was about the timely question
of Inter-allied war debts, it was not merely about political economy but also ‘subtly cultural’, as
Zajec has noted.32 Cultural tendency was manifested in Spykman’s juxtaposition of different
American and European views regarding the handling of the WWI debts and loans. Once again,
the way in which Spykman dissected these different views essentially relied on the simmelian
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 5

‘stranger’ conception where European and American cultures formed the antipodes within the
‘West’ where one side could hardly understand the other. Spykman, by then naturalized US citi-
zen, took upon himself to explain to Europeans American views about the debt question. What
further underlined this was Spykman’s chosen forum: a new German legal journal published
under the auspices of Heidelberg university.
The article had two key passages which exposed Spykman’s theoretical foundations and
which also found their expression in his later works too. Firstly, in the introduction, Spykman
rejected idealism in human affairs – and by extension – in international relations. Writing about
the post-WWI situation he noted:
The period of noble sacrifice for the cause of humanity was over and the period of hard bargaining had
begun, – if love, honor and morality were still invoked it was usually to point out that somebody else
should make a sacrifice. Human nature being what it is, this is only natural.33

In other words, functional pragmatism was the way to manage all types of relations whether
between individuals or nations. Secondly, his conclusion further bore the marks of his cultural
approach in which he situated himself – as Zajec notes – an arbiter between Europeans and
Americans. If European nations could separate war debts they owed to the US from their
demand for war reparations owed by Germany and conduct ‘businesslike’ affairs with the USA,
‘the people of the United States’, Spykman wrote, would be ‘willing to do their share in the final
liquidation of the horrible nightmare of useless destruction of life and wealth which almost
caused the complete annihilation of Western civilization’.34 These lines also implied the rejection
of idealism in favor of pragmatism. Indeed, Spykman’s call for ‘businesslike’ reflected his func-
tional pragmatism drawn from Simmel’s concept of Vergesellschaftung (socialization) where social
interaction or ‘these processes of mutual influencing’ created the matrix of society.35
At the same time, Spykman’s own socialization into scholarly international society took place
when he was actively engaged with the League of Nations social circles in Geneva, for example
in 1927 having acted as the deputy director of le Bureau d’etudes internationals de Geneve (BEI)
under Alfred Zimmern.36 The extent to which Geneva experiences shaped Spykman’s supposed
‘conversion’ from ‘idealist’ to ‘realist’ – the concepts which in themselves are not clear cut or sin-
gular – is open to debate not least since Zimmern’s reputation in particular is characterized by
idealist approach to IR.37 According to Zajec there never was such conversion, since Spykman
had already in his The Social Theory of Gerog Simmel constructed the world and human relations
which constituted it in relatively dark terms.38
What is more certain, however, is that during the 1930s, the role of geography rose in prom-
inence in Spykman’s thinking.39 One of the major factors for such development was directly
related to his epistemic community at Yale which in the 1920s and throughout 1930s was one
of the major academic bastions of isolationism. One facet of isolationism was based on the link
between American historical geography and the supposed security it offered – a view which
Spykman could not accept either on political or on epistemological grounds.

Spykman and the political geography of isolationism

Scholarship on isolationism is vast and its main features are well known so there is need not to
reiterate them here.40 Hence, I will observe only the most salient issues that are directly relevant
in terms of understanding Spykman’s anti-isolationist positioning. Above all, neither isolationism
nor internationalism were monolithic or stable concepts but viewpoints and arguments evolved
and changed over time. As Stephen Wertheim has shown, post-WWII internationalism was differ-
ent to pre-war internationalism which had stood in opposition of power politics. It was only after
the fall of France, Pearl Harbor and the beginnings of American postwar planning when the con-
cept of internationalism took a fundamental turn.41 Thus, between 1941 and 1943 American for-
eign policy elites campaigned for a new type of internationalism in which power politics was not
6 A. HOLMILA

only legitimized as a foreign policy option but begun to form the core of new international-
ist thinking.
The transition from pre-war (legalist) internationalism to a more bellicose internationalism was
far from easy or certain. At the top, the Roosevelt administration was hesitant – not least since
the concerns over public opinion. Although by 1942, postwar planning in the State Department
was in full swing, the administration was reluctant to open public discussion on the US role in
the world for the fear of isolationist backlash which could potentially lead to a prolonged debate
between isolationists and internationalists, ultimately having negative effect on the war effort.42
In institutional setting, the struggle between isolationists and internationalists that the admin-
istration treaded had raged at Yale, for example, the birth place of the America First Committee,
since the early 1930.43 The founding of YIIS in 1935 by Spykman, Frederick S. Dunn and Arnold
Wolfers formed the counter to Yale’s isolationism but their fought an uphill battle. For instance,
in February 1941, the director of the Yale Daily News could proudly claim that 1486 out of 2000
Yale students were isolationists.44
According to Ramos, when in the early 1930s Spykman served as Director of League of
Nations Association he had found the work frustrating since his goal to ‘shift the emphasis to a
more realistic policy [had] a faint chance of success’.45 Yet, his writings in the mid-1930s clearly
bore the mark of such efforts. In late 1934, he published a circular in the Yale Daily News urging
the USA to join the League of Nations.46 Earlier in the year, at the Alumni University Day he had
argued against the isolationist views that, ‘[w]e live in an inter-dependent world, and no incanta-
tions about self-sufficiency, and not even the daily compulsory reading of Washington’s Farewell
Address in the public schools is going to alter that fact’.47 The tone was strikingly similar to his
arguments later found in America’s Strategy.
The key piece that laid out the internationalist program for YIIS was his winter 1935 article
‘States’ Rights and the League’.48 The question of power formed the core:
The creation of international order is not a matter of the abolition of force but a change from the use of
force as an instrument of national policy to the organization of the use of force by the community [ … ]
Nobody has yet invented a means of influencing human behavior which is not a variation of the method of
persuasion, barter, or force.49

Bringing his sociological view into argumentation, Spykman lamented that those people
who abhor the use of force by the wrong people, are all in favor of moral sanctions. Not being sociologists,
they could not be expected to realize that a social technique [socialization] which is efficacious in
preventing Mrs. Thistlebottom from eating peas with a knife is not necessarily adequate to prevent a
military dictatorship from embarking on a war of conquest.50

Whether the League would survive or not remained to be seen. More certainly, Spykman
argued, moral sanctions as a way of regulating international system would be flawed as the cit-
ation above illustrates. The only solution was US participation in world affairs with pragmatic
compromises devoid of idealistic approach advocated by isolationists. But, characteristically,
Spykman could not help but to offer an ironic view of what these compromises might mean in
practice: ‘On the beautiful quay along the Lake Geneva’, he wrote, there would be ‘three bronze
plaques’ commemorating the compromising spirit: ‘The central one will be of Wilson, whose
idealism inspired the vision, the flanking ones will be of General Araki and General Goering,
who, by their sabre-rattling insistence on states’ rights, forced men’s minds to a practical
approach towards realization’.51 As we know, ‘Arakis’ and ‘Goerings’ never re-joined the League
and less than five years on, with the outbreak of WWII, its’ demise was final. As it was, instead of
practical compromise, favored by Spykman, Germany and Japan became to pose geopolitical
challenges to the isolationist US – an issue that later formed the core of America’s Strategy.
Politically, Spykman’s activity with internationalism, concentrating around the work of the
League of Nations Association, can be garnered from a number of sources, including press
reports from the 1920s and 1930s where Spykman’s name consistently appeared in connection
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 7

with peace and world affairs conferences. The New York Times offered a telling example in winter
1935 (coinciding with the working out of the YIIS program) when it noted: ‘Spykman [ … ] told
the diners our entry into the League was the only way to protect our interests in the Far East
from Japanese domination’.52 Increasingly, however, Spykman’s internationalist tendencies were
conditioned by the opposition to his colleagues’ isolationism which included academic stars like
the leading American scholar on international law, Edwin Borchard and the historian Samuel
Flagg Bemis. The latter was ‘the founding father’ of US diplomatic history who had won the
Pulizer Price in 1927 and in 1936 had authored a highly influential isolationist study A Diplomatic
History of the United States (1936) to be further elaborated in his 1943 book, The Latin America
Policy of the United States.53
Another influential Yale isolationist historian was A. Whitney Griswold, who was also active
in the America First Committee and whose 1938 book The Far Eastern Policy of the United
States, formed, according to one review, the ‘exigencies of his isolationist point of view’.54
Spykman, then the director of the Institute, commented on the matter to the Rockefeller
Foundation which funded YIIS: ‘Griswold, with a predilection for isolation, has undoubtedly
been influenced in the selection and presentation of historical material, although he has
accepted a good many of the criticisms of his non-isolationist colleagues’.55 In essence, it was
this ‘geography of isolationism’ which Spykman viewed dangerous. Academically, it was not
sustainable and politically, it was offering Americans flawed sense of security, summarized by
Charles A. Beard, another celebrity diplomatic historian in 1939: ‘The United States is a contin-
ental power separated from Europe by a wide ocean which, despite all changes in warfare, is
still a powerful asset of defense’.56 In 1942, Spykman contented that ‘There is still a danger
that the erroneous ideas regarding the nature of the Western Hemisphere inherent in isolation-
ist position may tempt people to urge a defensive strategy … ’.57 Thus, America’s Strategy
offered steely response to ‘geography of isolationism’. Whereas Griswold had sought to dem-
onstrate in his Far Eastern Policy that the region was not particularly important to the USA,
Spykman later contended that the isolationist had
accepted the fascist conception that the world should be organized into a few large-scale hegemonic
systems operating planned and integrated regional economies. In that ‘New Order’ the isolationist
envisaged for the United States a position of leadership over Western Hemisphere [ … ] Because it is
surrounded by oceans, it seemed to offer an opportunity for hemisphere defense through hemisphere
isolation [ … ] it appeared that the integrated states could survive in the coming struggle for power by the
adoption of a simple defensive policy.58

Finally, Spykman’s political argumentation was derived from a deep understanding of history,
clearly evident in the introduction to America’s Strategy when he discussed the issue of isolation-
ism versus internationalism:
… even if the past should favor one side more than the other, it would not follow that the side thus
favored represents the wiser policy. Historical precedent and the voice of the Fathers can be used as a
means to gain support for a doctrine but not as proof of its soundness. Not conformity with the past but
workability in the present is the criterion of a sound policy.59

Here, the references to ‘historical precedent’ as a legitimizing tool for ‘proof of soundness’
were not only applications of historical thinking or polemics against the likes of Griswold but is
also linked to Simmel’s epistemological approach to knowledge. According to Simmel, know-
ledge always directed and organized action, despite the fact that validity of such knowledge
could not be proven. In other words, as Spykman viewed it, the knowledge derived from
Washington’s farewell address had directed and organized isolationist action while the validity of
such action in the 1940s America could not be proven. This idea was explicitly manifested in
America’s Strategy: ‘Not conformity with the past but workability in the present is the criterion of
a sound policy’.60
8 A. HOLMILA

The reception of America’s strategy: the end of isolationism

When America’s Strategy was published in spring 1942, the hype it generated was summarized
by the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) who wrote that it had triggered ‘considerable
discussion in political, economic, and military circles’. Further, the book ‘received wide publicity
in newspaper and magazine reviews’ and in the nation’s capital the book was ‘among the six
best sellers … ’.61 The book’s publisher, Harcourt, Brace & Company, also appreciated the
America’s Strategy. In a letter to the RF, Lambert Davies, the book’s editor, noted that it was not
just the sales but the letters the company had received that indicated how the YIIS books ‘had
influence quite disproportionate to the number of copies sold’. America’s Strategy – which sold
over 16,000 copies – in particular, was according to Lambert as ‘one of the really influential
books of our decade’. 62
While the impact of America’s Strategy may not be in doubt, the way in which it was received
and conceptualized in the 1940s remains ambiguous. According to Or Rosenboim, the book,
‘won the praise of critics from academia’, while Colin S. Gray has argued that Spykman was not
particularly well received among his professional colleagues and Brian Blouet has written that
Spykman ‘got no thanks for his views in 1942’.63 Olivier Zajec has dug up many reviews of the
book and adjectives it was described with: ‘immoral’, ‘fascist’, ‘nihilist’, ‘defeatist’.64 Indeed, within
his profession he was admittedly often seen as being too cynical, too Machiavellian, and a pes-
simist, as Carl J. Friedrich – who himself supervised one cynical realist (i.e. Henry Kissinger)
pointed out.65 Be that as it may, Spykman’s lucid writing and poignant argumentation was typic-
ally praised even if his views and conclusions were not always shared. As Henry M. Wriston’s
noted in the Journal of International Law, ‘Those who make different value judgements, however,
must reckon with it’.66
In 1942, Spykman was not considered as a scholar of geopolitics. As Hans Haas put it in his
review of the book, ‘the impression that it is a treatise on geopolitics [ … ] is incorrect’.67 Richard
H. Heindel, reviewing the book for the Journal of Modern History, captured the major theme: ‘the
study is concerned with the implications of isolationism and internationalism’. Regardless of the
kind of international order in existence, Heindel argued that Spykman wanted to ‘kill the “false”
assumptions of isolationism regarding the western hemisphere’ so that these would ‘not direct
our war strategy’.68 Indeed, virtually all academic reviews dissected Spykman’s argumentation
from a perspective of isolationism, followed by the question of balance of power. A case in point
is Isaiah Bowman, the leading American geographer, a State Department advisor, and President
of the American Geographical Society. In his review, Bowman reminded how Americans were
reluctant to conceptualize the war in terms of power politics. Americans ‘never put the sword in
the picture. Germany and Japan do [ … ] it is a great virtue of Professor Spykman’s remorseless
argument that it is published at a time when it may influence policy [ … ]’.69 Of course, this pol-
icy had much less to do with the intellectual contours of geopolitics per se than with defeating
isolationism as a policy option. Policy influence was exactly what the YIIS programmatically
sought to do. Spykman’s frustration has been covered above, but in March 1935, when the insti-
tute was being set up Spykman had argued that ‘The type of research which the institute plans
to undertake is aimed at practical results. Its studies must assist in the formulation and conduct
of policy’.70 America’s Strategy was the apex of such program for it symbolized the increasing
willingness of Americans to see their influence as global.
If the institute in general and Spykman in particular used geography and power politics
instrumentally not only as a framework for analysis but as ‘language of legitimation’ the recep-
tion beyond the professional cadres also illustrate their success.71 The book’s reception by the
mainstream press followed a similar trajectory to the academic one. The New York Times declared
that isolationists would ‘not like the fatuous case he [Spykman] sets up for them’, adding that
they would also ‘be troubled by his realism’.72 The Washington Post went so far as to ask ‘must
we play power politics?’ The answer to such rhetoric was simple: ‘the United States must play
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 9

the dominant part, forgetting for once and for all the shibboleth of isolation’. In conclusion, this
overwhelmingly positive review noted that the book laid ‘the groundwork for a more realistic
outlook for the policies of the United States in times of war and in times of peace’.73 The
Christian Science Monitor told its readers that Spykman’s suggestions discouraging the idea of a
post-war European federation, ‘may not prove particularly inspiring to idealists … ’.74 Truly, the
vocabulary on realist-idealist and internationalist-isolationist divide framed the public representa-
tion of America’s Strategy.
At the same time as Spykman illustrated the emptiness of isolationists’ arguments, he was
also warning against the rising tide of overtly idealistic version of internationalism – a dangerous
development which had a flavor of the 1920s Geneva. In Spykman’s view, this idealist–interna-
tionalist position had a naïve notion of power politics which was nothing more than a major
cause for war. In general, it is worth bearing in mind that the whole idea of power politics which
Spykman advocated seemed distasteful and un-American for many. On the one hand, Spykman’s
argument hardly supported the idea of ‘American exceptionalism’ while simultaneously situating
US politics in the same category as the old-fashioned European power politics. On the other, it
also rejected the view of US foreign relations, dearly held by the isolationists that US power was
‘benevolent’. As a sociologist who already in the 1920s had examined the effects of imperialistic
powers on native cultures in Asia, he had no problems of acknowledging the less pleasant
dimensions of power and imperialism, which much later rose in vogue as a post-colonial para-
digm: ‘our so-called painless imperialism has seemed painless only to us’ he observed.75 Such
assessment would have been virtually impossible from a simple determinist geopolitical theory
but required sociologically oriented view of the world.
Finally, America’s Strategy must be squared around the most pressing issue that concerned
Spykman throughout his career: the relation between power and peace. On that note, he argued
that Americans would likely find the post-war world order disappointing if they though that
internationalism would amount to universalism, manifested in public proclamations such as the
Atlantic Charter and Roosevelt’s ‘four freedoms’. ‘The post-war policy of the United States’
Spykman noted, ‘will have to operate in a world of power politics under conditions very similar
to those that prevailed before the outbreak of the conflict’ and ‘plans for far-reaching changes in
the character of international society are an intellectual by-product of all great wars, but, when
fighting ceases, the actual peace structure usually represents a return to balanced power’.76
Once again this argumentation ties with a long intellectual arch of his thinking and his socio-
logical concern with conflict. Power translated into functions of ability, capacity, possibility and –
also means – to shape international society, as Maximilian Beck astutely noted in his review.77 In
the final pages of the book Spykman argued how,
In the first world conflict of the twentieth century, the United States won the war, but lost the peace [ … ] it
must be remembered, once and for all, that the end of a war is not the end of power struggle [ … ] The
interest of the United States demands not only victory in the war, but also continued participation in
the peace.78

For Spykman, the aftermath of WWI represented a colossal blunder and the US could not
afford to repeat it after the end of WWII. What is more, such argumentation derives from simme-
lian framework. Already in 1925, Spykman had claimed that ‘the type of victory that is of special
importance for the succeeding peace is the one that results, not exclusively from the preponder-
ance of the one party, but in part at least from the resignation of the other’. However, this claim
was followed by an idea that conciliation was ‘not identical with the general peaceful dispos-
ition’.79 In other words, Spykman warned that peace and conciliation were not identical but con-
stituted relatively independent actors meaning that while peace might be the end result of a
conflict in a legal sense, in a sociological sense conciliation was a long-term process requiring
‘continued participation’. The participation required the abandonment of isolationism and
10 A. HOLMILA

acceptance of power politics as the future mode of US Such approach was the only way to win
the peace too.

Spykman’s geopolitics? The Geography of the Peace

The idea of peace and the postwar world order also shaped Spykman’s last work, The Geography
of the Peace. Yet, when it came out in November 1944, the author had been dead over a year
(he died in June 1943). While the book, essentially the rimland concept, largely defined
Spykman’s legacy, it is perhaps surprising that rimland theory was not discussed or dissected at
any great length in many of the reviews after the book came out. For example, the Geographic
Review, field-defining journal, did not review the book as a standalone piece, but it was reviewed
with four other books.80 The book did not fare much better in other academic journals either.
The Political Science Quarterly, made no mention of the rimland theory, despite the reviewer,
Johannes Mattern, was one of the leading geopoliticians in the US at the time. Above all, the
reviews illustrate that the geopolitical importance of the rimland thesis gained its prominence
after the fact; it was the perfect match for the search of sound geopolitical grounds for the con-
tainment which consumed the Washington foreign policy elite since Kennan’s Long Telegram.
Yet, in the context of 1944 the major concerns were naturally elsewhere and it would be ana-
chronistic to assume otherwise.
On balance, rimland was not totally forgotten either. Robert Strauz-Hupe’s review in the
Military Affairs considered the book from the perspective of geopolitics. However, this is an
exception and as such hardly surprising given the reviewer’s background (and the audience of
the journal). In 1942, Strauz-Hupe had published a book titled Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space
and Power, which Spykman had reviewed (very positively) for the Political Science Quarterly.81 In
the same tenor, Strauz-Hupe’s review was positive – the book was compared favorably to
America’s Strategy in so far as it recommended a ‘more mellow type of “security policy” [ … ]’.
Strauz-Hupe even went as far as to describe the rimland concept. ‘The object of the cooperation
of these three superstates [the US, Britain and the USSR] is “to prevent the consolidation of the
rimland regions”’. Nevertheless, the actual merits of the rimland (or Mackinder’s heartland which
also featured) was neither discussed nor elaborated upon any further.82
Spykman’s rimland theory was elaborated upon somewhat more fully outside academia by
Orville Prescott and Hans Kohn in two separate reviews in the New York Times. After introducing
the basic tenets of Mackinder’s heartland concept, Prescott went on to describe how Spykman
had stood the theory on its head by suggesting that it was actually whoever controls the rim-
land that also controls the heartland, ‘and so by virtue of such colossal power threatens the
Americas. Ergo: it is an indispensable element in American foreign policy to see that no one
power ever controls all of Europe or all of East Asia’. However, Prescott was hardly impressed
with Spykman’s geopolitical stance and so proceeded to ruthlessly flatten it in the rest of the
review. The last lines show that many people in the US viewed geopolitics as no more than a
pseudoscience in 1944. While Spykman’s conclusions were accepted, there was ‘no proof that
the geopolitical reasoning by which they were reached is of much importance’. Rather rudely –
given that Spykman was dead and could not defend his position – Prescott went on to note
that ‘[t]he same conclusions have been reached by men traveling any number of other roads:
the study of foreign policy, the study of military affairs, or the mere application of horse sense’.83
Whereas Prescott took a harsh line against Spykman’s geopolitics, Hans Kohn – Professor of
Modern European History at Smith College (Mass.) – found much to commend in the book. But,
also Kohn’s review placed geopolitical argumentation into secondary category which was more
fundamentally linked to the wider issues shaping the course of the twentieth century US foreign
policy, starting from the end of WWI, when ‘most Americans [ … ] did not understand that for
the sake of their own security they must cooperate in the political life of Europe and Asia’. Kohn
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 11

was arguing that the rimland theory was important, but only as one facet of American national
security, and it was only within this framework as a whole that Spykman’s contribution
became vital:
It was not Professor Spykman’s intention to discuss all aspects of the maintenance of peace, dominant
political ideas, social structure and national traditions. His brief book stresses only one aspect, which,
though not the most important one, cannot be overlooked. Within these self-imposed limitations he has
performed a much-needed task well … 84

Instead of geopolitics, the main focuses for the reception of the book were the question of
power like in the case of America’s Strategy and, as the book’s title illustrate, peace. Kohn argued
in the final lines of his review that Spykman ‘wrote the book for Americans and from the
American point of view’.85 In essence, ‘the American point of view’ referred to a weaving of
national and international tendencies together for the sake of collective security, as Spykman
himself wrote:
Although international institutions are set up to deal with particular phases of the problems which states
must solve, and although nations recognize a body of rules governing their conduct toward each other, it
still remains true that the final responsibility for the security of each individual state rests upon
itself alone.86

The formulation was in line with Spykman’s long-term realist thought that recognized no
higher authority than individual state and thereby viewed the international society as anarchical.
Indeed, already in 1933 Spykman had argued that, ‘Anarchy and order do not connote absence
or presence of international society, but absence or presence of government’.87 But this is where
we must pause because the way in which the Geography of the Peace developed especially
towards the end – the sections where emergent international order was discussed – was, and
remains, problematic.
Although the Geography of the Peace bears Spykman’s name, we must remember that it was
published posthumously and edited by Spykman’s colleagues. Observing this (rather noncha-
lantly), Mattern noted that the book ‘was edited from the author’s notes by Helen R. Nicholl,
research assistant’.88 What might have been the status of Spykman’s research notes, lectures and
how they might have been edited after Spykman’s death did not seem to bother his contempo-
raries. However, Olivier Zajec has recently brought this critical problem to light.89 According to
him, the book betrays some of Spykman’s long-held views thereby raising questions about
authorship and the process of editing. Above all, the book lacked the same type of sociological
framework which was present in all other Spykman’s writings from the 1920s to America’s
Strategy.90 Thus, it is reasonable to suggest, as Zajec does, that the Geography was not simply
Spykman’s work. Instead, on the one hand, it was a stitching together Spykman’s views and
ideas from the 1930s to his unpublished presentations and research notes while on the other, it
infused personal ideas of Spykman’s YIIS colleagues, most notably those of Frederick S. Dunn
and William T. R. Fox.91
First, as noted, the absence simmelian threads which underscored Spykman’s scholarship is
notable. Second, the book’s arguments about US–British relations and the role of Big Three
Alliance in postwar world diverts from Spykman’s well-known positions.92 As for the former,
Spykman had in 1942 reminded his readers that the ‘contemporary urge for security finds no
answer in Anglo-Saxon liberalism … ’93 For the latter, he had argued – controversially but far-
sightedly (in retrospect) – that ‘In case of Allied victory, the Soviet Union will come out of the
war as one of the greatest industrial nations of the world with an enormous war potential’,
meaning that for the sake of balance of power in Europe, the US would be required to check
the Soviets. Additionally, Spykman also argued that US might have to maintain strong Germany
after the war. 94 In short, Spykman was dubious of all kinds of hegemony schemas while in con-
trast, in the Geography, these questions took a different path.95 The book ends, uncharacteristic
of Spykman, with a plea for the Big Three cooperation: ‘These three states can [ … ] provide the
12 A. HOLMILA

foundation for an effective security system. Since neither of the three can afford to stand alone
and isolated against the rest of the world, their co-operation will serve their own best inter-
ests’.96 What is more, Oliver Zajec has made a key semantic observation: The expression of ‘the
three superpowers’ which appeared in the book (p. 57) has been attributed to William T. R. Fox,
who has been credited for the invention of the concept ‘superpowers’ to describe the postwar
power relations.97 Thus, if the Geography’s sole author would have been Spykman, then he
should have got the credit for the coining of the superpower-concept. ‘Who else than Fox’, Zajec
asked, could have decided ‘to use it in the ‘Spykman’ book’?98 To put differently, Fox among
other YIIS staff wrote – or at lease heavy-handedly edited – sections of the Geography.
At the same time YIIS, not least Dunn and Fox themselves, was heavily engaged with both
public and governmental sectors in promoting Anglo-American alliance. Fox’s The Super-Powers
which was also published in November 1944, had argued about a need for a continuous Soviet-
Anglo-American coalition much in the same way as the Geography. What is more, the Geography
of the Peace was explicitly used as a promotional tool for Fox’s book.99 A half a year later, in
spring 1945 Fox himself landed a job as a consultant at the San Francisco conference while prior
to that, YIIS under Dunn’s leadership, prepared the US public towards accepting the new power
hegemony through a radio broadcast ‘Building a New World’, which featured Dunn, Fox, Wolfers
and other YIIS members.100 Had Spykman lived, it is likely that his view of the superpower alli-
ance would have been more critical, no doubt drawing from sociology.

Conclusion
Spykman was writing at a crucial time in US history when the ideas of internationalism and isola-
tionism went through a transformative shift. Essentially, internationalism became associated with
power which was needed for the interests of national security – a type of reasoning Spykman
helped to popularize. Indeed, his contribution went far beyond simply introducing or theorizing
about geopolitics in the USA. Although Spykman still retains the interest of IR scholars interested
in geopolitics, we must understand his work also in the context of the USA when it was at war
and isolationism was still a considerable current in US politics and culture. By dissecting a long
course of US foreign policy traditions, Spykman explicitly sought to refute isolationist theories,
particularly in his magnum opus, America’s Strategy in World Politics. The book illustrated the
multidisciplinary aspects of its author: as was clear from the reception of the book, it was not
simply about geopolitics but about history, international relations, geography and undergirding
it all, sociology.
Indeed, the article has sought to illustrate that in order to have a more complete view of
Spykman’s work, we need to take into account not only his most famous works or theories, like
rimland, but also the less studied contours of his career. They all demonstrate his long-term
engagement with geographical factors in world politics and a systematic intellectual foundation
that is anchored to Georg Simmel’s social theories, the subject of his 1923 doctorate. In other
words, he should not be considered merely as a writer who modified Mackinder’s heartland con-
cept in the way that soon suited to the cold war geopolitical landscape of containment. At the
time of his writing, such issues were still out of his horizon, while the questions of isolationism
and internationalism, the functions of international society as well as those of the balance of
power and collective security in the postwar world were much more crucial issues.
On the whole, then, for Spykman geopolitics, whenever it featured, was a means to an end,
not an end in itself. To put differently, his geopolitics was a tool with which he first sought to
debunk the deeply held myth that America’s geographical boundaries and the lasting legacy of
isolationism were conducive to hemispheric security. Second, he, like YIIS, attempted to influence
US foreign policy elite and the public alike to accept that US security was not only dependent
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 13

on internationalism but on the type of internationalism which placed the question of power at
the core.
From the reception of his works in 1942 and 1944, we can conclude that Spykman was seen
as an academic who had prolific writing skills and who was bent on offering scholarly but
accessible rationale for American interventionist politics, of how American should relate to and
understand the workings of international community. The service he had performed for the pub-
lic in wartime before his premature death were seen in his obituaries. While open to source criti-
cism – as obituaries as a genre are hardly balanced assessments of people and their life’s work –
it is still worth pointing out the words of his PhD supervisor Frederick J. Teggart. While Teggart
was compelled to claim that America’s Strategy did ‘less than justice to the wide knowledge and
understanding [ … ] the author exhibited in personal conversation and public discussion’.101 As I
have argued throughout, the urgency of Spykman’s message stemmed from finding solutions to
the most pressing questions of society, be that power, isolationism geography or peace. The
words with which he opened his 1923 doctoral dissertation remained his guiding spirit, and thus
remains as a noteworthy – and timely – epitaph for his scholarly vision:
Western civilization has reached a crisis. It cannot survive in its present form. But if it is to survive at all,
man must find a solution for the urgent problems of internal and external relations. If the social forces
which at present are spending themselves in ruthless conflict remain unchecked, there is nothing ahead but
utter destruction.102

Notes
1. Hans Haas, ‘America’s Strategy in World Politics’, Social Forces, xxi (1942), 112.
2. Paul J. Bolt and Sharyl N. Cross (eds), China, Russia and Twenty-First Century Global Geopolitics (Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Stefano Guzzini (ed), The Return of Geopolitics in Europe? Social
Mechanisms and Foreign Politcy Identity Crisis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Jeremy Black,
Geopolitics and the Quest for Dominance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016); Robert D. Kaplan, The
Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate (New York:
Random House, 2012), 89-136.
3. Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co, 1944), 43.
4. Teggart was interested in historical theory, geography and comparison among other things. In 1919, he
reviewed Halford Mackinder’s Democratic Ideals and Reality for the Geographical Review, viii (1919), 227-42.
His major scholarly work included Prolegomena to History: The Relation of History to Literature, Philosophy,
and Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1916) and Theory of History (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1925).
5. Hans Haas, “America’s Strategy in World Politics’, Social Forces xxi (1942), 112.
6. Notable exception is Olivier Zajec, Nicholas John Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine. Un
itineraire intellectual aux origins paradoxales de la theorie realiste des relations internationals (Paris: PUPS,
2016). Also, David Wilkinson noted this on the outset of his ‘Spykman and Geopolitics’, in Ciro E. Zoppo and
Zorgbibe (eds), On Geopolitics: Classical and Nuclear (The Hague: Springer, 1985), 77-8.
7. Colin S. Gray, ‘Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power, and International Order’, Journal of Strategic
Studies, xxxviii (2015), 883.
8. Kenneth W. Thompson, Political Realism and the Crisis of World Politics: An American Approach to Foreign
Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 22; See also, e.g. Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., ‘The Contribution of
Nicholas John Spykman to the Study of International Politics’, World Politics iv (1952), 382-409; S. B. Jones,
‘Global Strategic Views’, Geographical Review xlv (1955), 492-508; Ernst B. Haas, ‘The Balance of Power:
Prescription, Concept or Propaganda’, World Politics v (1953), 442-77; D. W. Meining, ‘Heartland and Rimland
in Eurasian History’, The Western Political Quarterly ix (1956), 553-69; Ladis K.D. Kristof, ‘The Origins and
Evolution of Geopolitics’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution iv (1960), 15-51.
9. Geoffrey Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought (Worcester: Routledge, 1985), 121-3. National Security Seminar
manuals can be found digitally at Hathi Trust collection.
10. On historical turn see Brian C. Schmidt and Nicholas Guilhot (eds), Historiographical Investigations in
International Relations (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2019), esp.4-14. On US hegemony question, Stephen
Wertheim, Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy in World War II (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, forthcoming); Or Rosenboim, The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order in Britain
and the United States, 1939–1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017); Lucian M. Ashworth, A History
14 A. HOLMILA

of International Thought. From the Origins of the Modern State to Academic International Relations (London:
Routledge, 2014); Robert Vitalis, White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International
Relations (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2015); Matthew Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold
War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
11. Black, Geopolitics, 166.
12. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine. For Spykman’s role in establishing the interwar
school of realism in the USA, see Olivier Zajec, ‘Legal Realism and International Realism in the United States
during the Interwar Period. Neglected Reformist Convergences between Political Science and Law’, Revue
Fancaise de Science Politique, lxv (2015), 785-804.
13. Paulo Jorge Batista Ramos, ‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies in the Construction of the
United States National Security Ideology, 1935–1951’ (PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2003). For
the institutional examination, see also Inderjeet Parmar, ‘American Hegemony, the Rockefeller Foundation,
and the Rise of Academic International Relations in the United States’ in Nicolas Guilhot (ed), The Invention
of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation and the 1954 Conference on Theory (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 182-209, see esp. 189-91.
14. Colin Craig, Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. New
York: Columbia University press, 2004), 47, cf 38.
15. Colin Flint, ‘Introduction: Geography of War and Peace’, in Colin Flint (ed), Geography of War and Peace (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4.
16. Spykman, ‘Geography and Foreign Policy, I’, The American Political Science Review, xxxii (1938), 30.
17. Furniss, Jr., ‘The Contribution of Nicholas John Spykman’, 385.
18. Or Rosenboim, ‘Geopolitics and Empire: Visions of Regional World Order in the 1940s’, Modern Intellectual
History, xii (2015), 357.
19. Frederick J. Teggart, ‘In Memoriam: Nicholas John Spykman, 1893–1943’ American Journal of Sociology, xlix
(1943), 60.
20. Nicholas J. Spykman, The Social Theory of Georg Simmel (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1925).
21. Albion W. Small, ‘Review: The Social Theory of Georg Simmel by Nicholas J. Spykman’, American Journal of
Sociology, xxxi (1925), 84-7. On Spykman’s impact on American sociology, see David Frisby’s introduction in
Spykman, The Social Theory of Gerog Simmel (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), vii-xxxiv.
22. Nicholas J. Spykman, ‘Methods of approach to the study of international relations’, in Proceedings of the
Fifth Conference of Teachers of International Law and Related Subjects Held at Washington, DC, April 26–27,
1933 (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1933), 58-61.
23. Nicholas J. Spykman, ‘The Social Background of Asiatic Nationalism’, The American Journal of Sociology, xxxii
(1926), 396-411 and Spykman, ‘United States and the Allied Debts’, Zeitschrift f€ €ffentliches
ur auslandisches o
Rech und volkerrecht, i (1929), 155-84.
24. Spykman, ‘The Social Background’, 405.
25. Ibid., 403-4.
26. Spykman, ‘The Social Background’, 402. Simmel cited in George Ritzer et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Social
Theory (Thousand Oaks, 2005), 700. Original, Georg Simmel, Soziologie: Untersuchungen u €ber die Formen der
Vergesellschaftung (Leipzig, 1908), 685.
27. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 161.
28. Ibid., 156.
29. Spykman, The Social Theory, esp. 95-114.
30. Spykman, America’s Strategy, 15-6.
31. Spykman, ‘United States and the Allied Debts’, 155-84.
32. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 186.
33. Spykman, ‘United States and the Allied Debts’, 155.
34. Ibid., 181.
35. Spykman, The Social Theory, 29-30.
36. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 178-9.
37. On Zimmern’s idealism, see Paul B. Rich, ‘Reinventing Peace: David Davies, Alfred Zimmern and Liberal
Internationalism in Interwar Britain’, International Relations, xvi (2002), 117-33.
38. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 184-7.
39. The two major geographical pieces which Spykman published in the 1930s are ‘Geography and Foreign
Policy, I’, The American Political Science Review, xxii (1938), 28-50 and ‘Geography and Foreign Policy, II’, The
American Political Science Review, xxii (1938), 213-36.
40. On isolationism, see e.g. John A. Thompson, A Sense of Power. The Roots of America’s Global Role (Ithaca and
London, 2015); Andrew Johnstone, ‘Isolationism and Internationalism in American Foreign Relations’, Journal
of Transatlantic Studies, ix (2011), 7-20 and Thomas N. Guinsburg, ‘The Triumph of Isolationism’, in Gordon
Martell (ed), American Foreign Relations Reconsiderd 1890–1993 (New York and London, 1994), 90-105.
41. Wertheim, Tomorrow, the World.
 THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 15

42. Hoopes and Brinkley, FDR, 55.

43. On the America First Committee, see Andrew Johnstone, Against Immediate Evil: American Internationalists
and the Four Freedoms on the Eve of World War II (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2014), 102-4.
44. Cited in Ramos, ‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 91.
45. Spykman cited in Ramos, ‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 167.
46. Spykman, ‘US Isolation Wrong, Spykman Says’, Yale Daily News no. 61, 4 December 1934.
47. Spykman, ‘the Study of International Relations’; Yale Alumni Weekly, 16 Mar 1934, cited in Ramos, ‘The Role
of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 103.
48. Spykman, ‘States Rights and the League’, The Yale Review, 24/2 (1935), 274-92.
49. Ibid., 285.
50. Ibid., ‘States Rights and the League’, 285-6.
51. Ibid., ‘States Rights and the League’, 292.
52. ‘Praised on League Stand’, the New York Times, 7 Feb. 1935, 11. See also ‘Women Urge Men to Form
Societies for Cure of Wars’, the Washington Post, 19 Jan. 1928, 20; ‘Women Seeking to Clarify Policy of United
States in Pan America’, Christian Science Monitor, 19 Jan. 1928, 1; ‘to Discuss Relations with England at Yale’,
the New York Times, 23 Mar. 1930, N3; ‘League Association Fears Sour Isolation’, the New York Times, 12 Feb.
1932, 3; ‘Ask Independence for Philippines: Foreign Policy and World Peace Group Urge Roosevelt to Take
Initiative’, the New York Times, 2 Jan. 1934, 10; ‘Yale Group to Get Trip to Washington’, Christian Science
Monitor, 1 Nov. 1934, 3; ‘Newspaper Specials: Condensed Items of Financial Interest From American
Newspapers’, Wall Street Journal, 4 Nov. 1933, 3; ‘Reich Coup Stirs a Spirited Debate’, the New York Times, 29
Mar. 1936, 30; ‘New League Urged for All Nations’, the New York Times, 11 May 1936, 3.
53. Samuel F. Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1936); The Latin
America Policy of the United States (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co, 1943).
54. Ramos, ‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 115-6.
55. Rockefeller Archives Center, RG 1.1, Series 200, Box 417, Folder 4955: Nicholas Spykman’, Report for the Year
1938–1939’, 118.
56. Charles A. Beard, Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels (New York: Macmillan, 1939), 65.
57. Spykman, America’s Strategy, 450.
58. Ibid., 196.
59. Ibid., 7.
60. Ibid., 7.
61. RAC, Rockefeller Foundation Archive, Folder 4945, box 416, series 200 RG 1.1, ‘Excerpt from Trustees
Confidential Bulletin, 5 May 1942’, p. 1.
62. RAC, Rockefeller Foundation Archive, Folder 4945, box 416, series 200 RG 1.1, Lambert Davis to George W.
Gray, 29 Apr. 1942.
63. Rosenboim, The Emergence of Globalism, 60; Gray, ‘Spykman, the Balance of Power’; Brian Blouet, Globalities:
Geopolitics and Globalization in the Twentieth Century (London: Reaktion Books, 2004), 120.
64. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 317.
65. C. J. Friedrich, ‘America’s Strategy in World Politics’, The American Historical Review xlviii (1942), 155-6; on
Friedrich and Kissinger, see Kaplan, The Return of Marco Polo’s World, 167-8.
66. Henry M. Wriston, ‘America’s Strategy in World Politics’, The American Journal of International Law 36/3
(1942), 518.
67. Haas, ‘America’s Strategy in World Politics’, 112.
68. Richard H. Heindel, ‘America’s Strategy in World Politics’, Journal of Modern History xiv (1942), 548.
69. Isaiah Bowman, ‘Political Geography’, 352.
70. Spykman cited in Ramos, ‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 108.
71. Wertheim, Tomorrow, the World.
72. G.H.E. Smith, ‘America’s Role’, BR1.
73. R.E.Runser, ‘Must We Play Power-Politics’, The Washington Post, 5 Ap. 1942, S10.
74. ‘The Power Factor in World Order: A Bookshelf Review’, The Christian Science Monitor, 1 May 1942, 22.
75. Spykman, America’s Strategy, 64.
76. Ibid., 465 and 458.
77. Beck, ‘America’s Strategy in World Politics’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, iii (1942), 238.
78. Spykman, America’s Strategy, 457.
79. Spykman, The Social Theory, 126-7.
80. See ‘Geographical Reviews’, Geographical Review xxxiv (1944), 672-4.
81. Nicholas J. Spykman, ‘Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power by Robert Strausz-Hup e and Geopolitik:
Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire by Johannes Mattern’, The Political Science Quarterly, 57/4
(1942), 598-601.
82. Robert Strauz-Hupe, ‘The Geography of the Peace’, Military Affairs 8/2 (1944), 145.
83. Orville Prescott, ‘Books of the Times’, The New York Times, 24 Apr. 1944, 17.
16 A. HOLMILA

84. Hans Kohn, ‘Geography and Peace’, The New York Times, 23 Apr. 1944, BR4.
85. Kohn, ‘Geography and Peace’, BR4.
86. Spykman, Geography of the Peace, 3.
87. Spykman, ‘Methods of approach to the study of international relations’, 61.
88. Johannes Mattern, ‘Book notes’, 472.
89. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 390-400; Olivier Zajec, ‘Introduction a The
Geography of the Peace, de Nicholas Spykman: Une r einterpr
etation critique’, Res Militaris, iv (2014), 1-36. On-
line: http://resmilitaris.net/ressources/10186/34/res_militaris_article_zajec_introduction___nicholas_spykman__
the_geography_of_the_peace.pdf
90. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 399; Zajec, ‘Introduction’, 18-9.
91. Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 390-400, esp. 399.
92. See also Zajec, ‘Introduction’, 24-5.
93. Spykman, America’s Strategy, 258.
94. Ibid., 466-7.
95. Spykman was even dubious of strong united Europe as it would be also detrimental to US interest to
maintain precarious balance of power in Europe.
96. Spykman, The Geography, 61.
97. William T.R. Fox, Super-Powers: The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union – Their Responsibility for Peace
(New York: Harcourt Brace & Co, 1944).
98. Zajec, Spykman: l’invention de la geopolitique americaine, 406; Zajec, ‘Introduction’, 26.
99. Ibid., 406; Ramos, ‘The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 262-3.
100. See Ramos, “The Role of the Yale Institute of International Studies’, 248-54; 263.
101. Teggart, ‘In Memoriam’, 60.
102. Spykman, The Social Theory, v.

Acknowledgement
For the valuable help, advice, comments and suggestions for writing this article, the author would like to thank the
anonymous reviewers, Pertti Ahonen, Andrew Williams, Or Rosenboim, Hagen Schulz-Forberg, Matti Roitto and
Pasi Ihalainen.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
The work was supported by the Finnish Academy [grant number: 275589].

Notes on contributor
Antero Holmila is Associate Professor of Modern History at the University of Jyv€askyl€a.