Introduction

Abstract

Women defined and transformed the substance and practice of international relations as it emerged as a separate intellectual field examining the relations between peoples, empires, and states at the turn of the twentieth century. They engaged the international politics of their time in the context of diverse colonial and anticolonial struggles, inter-imperial wars and superpower rivalry, and nationalist, ideological, and political conflict. They addressed war, racial hierarchy and immigration, labor organization and world economy, colonial administration, foreign policy and diplomacy, international law and organization, religion and ethics, technological transformation, and environmental destruction. This wide-ranging work took many forms and genres and was produced in a variety of professional and intellectual contexts. It was well known and influential in its time. And, yet, examining the contemporary field of international relations, its history and scholars, it is as if this past had never existed, as if women had hardly lived, thought, and practiced as scholars, as advisors and policy makers, as journalists, and as public intellectuals. This anthology proves this conventional version of international relations history wrong.