War and Peace in a Multipolar World: A Critique of Quincy Wright's Institutionalist Analysis of the Interwar International System

The purpose of this article is to provide a historical perspective on the contemporary disputes by evaluating an influential multidisciplinary analysis of war and peace of the interwarperiod by period by Quincy Wrigh’s study of war in 1942. After reviewing the main features of a study of war, the present article evalutes the quality of Wight’s analysis of three important topics raised in this comprehensive work: the nature of one of the major states in the international system namely, Stalin’s USSR, the determinants of World War II, and the economics of war and peace. Comparisons are made between Quincy Wright’s and interwar Soviet Marxist assessment of the same subjects. This is intended both to reveal their differing interpretations of concepts and events and to show their similarities with respect to an ambition, multidisciplinary claims to a scientific methodology, attempts to provide an explanation of the historical evolution of war in all societies, normative natures, and millennial visions of a future peacful world. The findings then are related to the modern debates mentioned above.