The Vices of Integrity

"Edward Hallett Carr is renowned as the historian of Soviet Russia, biographer of The Romantic Exiles, founder of the 'realist' approach to the study of International Relations and author of the classic Trevelyan lecture series, What Is History?" "This biography reveals how intimately the historian's grasp of statecraft is related to Carr's own formative experiences at the centre of political events. Seconded from Cambridge to the Foreign Office during World War I, initially to ensure trade with Tsarist Russia and subsequently to administer the Allied blockade of the new Soviet Republic, and attending the post-war Paris peace talks on behalf of the British, Carr witnessed at first hand the unfolding drama of the revolution which was to become the centrepiece of his life's work. Marooned at the British Embassy in Riga during the late 1920s, Carr threw himself into a study of Russian language and literature, producing his sparkling account of nineteenth-century revolutionaries, The Romantic Exiles, in 1933." "At the Foreign Office and as Times leader writer during World War II Carr was an influential opinion-maker, using the platform of Printing House Square to mount a forceful inter