Women and the History of International Thought

Abstract

Existing surveys and anthologies wrongly convey the impression that women in the past did not think seriously about international politics. This article provides evidence of the magnitude of the exclusion of historical women from the field by analyzing sixty texts in the history of international thought and disciplinary history. It also begins the process of remedying this exclusion. I map a new agenda for research on the history of women's international thought. Work in feminist historiography, as well as new archival research, suggests that a diverse array of historical women thought deeply about international relations, but their intellectual contributions have been obscured—and even actively erased. To illustrate what international studies can gain by pursuing a research agenda on historical women's international thought, I discuss a neglected, but at the time extremely important figure, in what might be called “white women's international relations,” the influential scholar of colonial administration, Lucy Philip Mair.