Quincy Wright

Quincy Wright
Wright c. 1940
Born	(1890-12-28)December 28, 1890 Medford, Massachusetts,United States
Died	October 17, 1970(1970-10-17)(aged 79) Charlottesville,Virginia, United States
Occupation	professor,Political scientist
Genre	War,International law

Philip Quincy Wright(December 28, 1890 – October 17, 1970) was an Americanpolitical scientistbased at theUniversity of Chicagoknown for his pioneering work and expertise ininternational law,international relations,andsecurity studies.He headed the Causes of War project at the University of Chicago, which resulted in the prominent 1942 multi-volume bookA Study of War.

Biography

Born inMedford, Massachusetts,Wright received his B.A. fromLombard Collegein 1912.He completed his Ph.D. at theUniversity of Illinoisin 1915. He also received anLL.D.He taught at Harvard University and the University of Minnesota before joining thedepartmentofsocial sciencesat theUniversity of Chicagoin 1923.In 1927, he was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.He was one of the co-founders ofChicago'sCommittee On International Relationsin 1928, the firstgraduate programininternational relationsestablished in the United States. In addition to hisacademicwork, Wright was an adviser to JusticeRobert H. Jacksonat theNuremberg Trials,and often provided advice to theU.S. State Department.During World War II, Wright was a consultant in the U.S. State Department.In 1956 he became Professor of International Law in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. He retired in 1961 and became a visiting professor at numerous universities, both within the United States and abroad, including,Tsing Hua Universityin Beijing, theGraduate Institute of International Studiesin Geneva, Mexico, Cuba,The Hagueand Turkey.

Quincy Wright in 1909

Throughout his career Wright served as president of several scholarly bodies, including theAmerican Association of University Professors(1944–1946), theAmerican Political Science Association(1948–1949), theInternational Political Science Association(1950–1952), and theAmerican Society of International Law(1955–1956). He was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Societyin 1943.He was a member of the editorial board of the American Association of International Law from 1923 until his death. He was also active in the U.S.United Nations Association.

Wright's father was the economistPhilip Green Wrightand his brothers were the geneticistSewall Wrightand the aeronautical engineerTheodore Paul Wright.

Academic work

During the 1920s, the horrors ofWorld War Iwere foremost in the thoughts of many social scientists. Soon after his arrival atChicago,Wright organized an ongoing interdisciplinary study ofwars,which eventually resulted in over 40dissertationsand 10 books. Wright summarized this research in his magnum opusA Study of War(1942).

According toKarl DeutschofHarvard University,

War, to be abolished, must be understood. To be understood, it must be studied. No one man worked with more sustained care, compassion, and level-headedness on the study of war, its causes, and its possible prevention than Quincy Wright. He did so for nearly half a century, not only as a defender of man's survival, but as a scientist. He valued accuracy, facts, and truth more than any more appealing or preferred conclusions; and in his great book,A Study of War,he gathered, together with his collaborators, a larger body of relevant facts, insights, and far-ranging questions about war than anyone else has done.

Wright's study of warfare inspired manysocial scientistsand his database of wars is an indispensable resource for anyone seriously interested in quantitative studies of human conflicts.

Other thanA Study of War,Wright published a further 20 books and nearly 400journal articlesduring his career. Several of his books became standard texts, includingMandates Under the League of Nations(1930) andThe Study of International Relations(1955). InThe Study of International Relations,Wright distinguished between eight root disciplines of international relations: "international law, diplomatic history, military science, international politics, international organization, international trade, colonial government, and the conduct of foreign relations."These disciplines were supplemented by the following specialties: "world history, world geography, pacifism, the psychology and sociology of international relations; humanistic, social, and biological disciplines; and the recent development of regional studies, operational research, and group dynamics."In a review of the book,Harold Lasswellwrote that Wright sought to provide a common frame for the study of world politics and to halt an emerging trend towards increased specialization.

Wright was a prominent legal expert on the mandates system.While conducting research forMandates Under the League of Nations(1930), which was funded by a Guggenheim Foundation grant,Wright visitedDamascusless than two weeks after it had been shelled during theGreat Syrian Revolt.His experiences in Damascus shaped his views on the mandates system and colonialism. Wright rebutted notions that Syrians were barbarians who could not govern themselves. He argued that the Syrian rebels were a state in the making and that French actions to repress the Syrians were a "policy of terrorism" and war crimes.Wright rebutted notions that Syrians were not protected by international law.

Selected publications

• The Control of American Foreign Relations.1922.Macmillan.
• "The Palestine Problem",Political Science Quarterly,Vol. 41, No. 3 (September 1926), pp. 384–412, viaJSTOR
• Mandates Under the League of Nations.1930.University of Chicago Press.
• Research in International Law Since the War.1930.Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• Public Opinion and World Politics.1933. University of Chicago Press.
• A Study of War.1942. University of Chicago Press.
• The Study of International Relations.1955. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
• The Strengthening of International Law.1960. Academic of International Law.
• International Law and the United States.1960. Asia Publishing House.
• The Role of International Law in the Elimination of War.1961. Oceana.

See also

• War cycles

References

Further reading

• "Dr. Quincy Wright, 79, Is Dead; Authority on International Law; Proponent of Understanding".New York Times.October 18, 1970.
• Falk, Richard A. (July 1972). "Quincy Wright: On Legal Tests of Aggressive War".American Journal of International Law.66(3): 560–571.doi:10.2307/2198728.JSTOR2198728.S2CID147443852.
• Gorman, Daniel (April 2017). "International Law and the International Thought of Quincy Wright, 1918–1945".Diplomatic History.41(2): 336–361.doi:10.1093/dh/dhw052.
  • online H-Net review of Gorman article
• Lepawsky, Albert, Edward H. Buehrig & Harold D. Lasswell (eds.) (1971),The search for world order: Studies by students and colleagues of Quincy Wright.New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.ISBN0-3905-5513-4
• Thompson, Kenneth (2002)."Quincy Wright".In Utter, Glenn H.; Lockhart, Charles (eds.).American Political Scientists: A Dictionary.ABC-CLIO. pp.448–449.ISBN978-0-313-31957-0.
• Whiting, Allen S. (December 1970). "In Memoriam: Quincy Wright, 1890–1970—A Symposium".Journal of Conflict Resolution.14(4): 443–448.doi:10.1177/002200277001400403.hdl:2027.42/67868.S2CID145577257.

External links

• Works by or about Quincy Wrightat theInternet Archive
• Guide to the Quincy Wright Papers 1907-1972at theUniversity of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
• The University of Chicago Photographic Archive