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Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice 2

Richard Ned Lebow Editor

Richard Ned Lebow:

A Pioneer in International
Relations Theory, History,
Political Philosophy
and Psychology
With a Foreword by Simon Reich
Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science,
Engineering, Practice

Volume 2

Series editor
Hans Günter Brauch, Mosbach, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15230
http://www.afes-press-books.de/html/PAHSEP.htm
http://afes-press-books.de/html/PAHSEP_Lebow.htm
Richard Ned Lebow
Editor

Richard Ned Lebow:

A Pioneer in International
Relations Theory, History,
Political Philosophy
and Psychology

123
Editor
Richard Ned Lebow
Department of War Studies
King’s College London
London
UK

Acknowledgement: The cover photograph as well as all other photos in this volume were
taken from the personal photo collection of the author who also granted the permission for
their publication in this volume. A book website with additional information on Richard Ned
Lebow, including videos and his major book covers is at: 1http://afes-press-books.de/html/
PAHSEP_Lebow.htm.
The cover photo shows a painting by the Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)
of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, see at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wave_
off_Kanagawa. The photo is in the public domain at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_
Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa#/media/File:Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg. This work is in
the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright
term is the author’s life plus 100 years or less. This photographic reproduction is therefore
also considered to be in the public domain in the United States.

ISSN 2509-5579 ISSN 2509-5587 (electronic)

Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice
ISBN 978-3-319-34149-1 ISBN 978-3-319-34150-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-34150-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016938415

© The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or
for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Copyediting: PD Dr. Hans Günter Brauch, AFES-PRESS e.V., Mosbach, Germany

Printed on acid-free paper

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The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
To Mrs. Austin, my primary school librarian.
School was unredeemably boring and my
solution was to misbehave in class and get
sent to the principal’s office. He did not want
me hanging around, so dispatched me to the
library. Mrs. Austin knew exactly what was
going on and showed me the latest books that
had arrived or suggested older works for me
to read. In lieu of going stir crazy in class,
I began to acquire an education.
Ned noodles. Source The author’s personal photo collection
Acknowledgements

Above all I want to thank Hans Günter Brauch for suggesting and making possible
the publication of these four volumes of excerpts from my scholarly writings. I also
owe a debt to Simon Reich for writing the preface and to Robert English, Mervyn
Frost, Stefano Guzzini, Markus Kornprobst, Harald Müller, Janice Stein, and
Christian Wendt for writing generous and thoughtful evaluations of my research
agenda and publications. I would like to thank Susan Simon of the Jones Media
Center, Dartmouth College, for her assistance in producing high-resolution digital
copies of 1940s black-and-white photographs.

London, UK Richard Ned Lebow

June 2016

vii
Ned in primary school PS3, Queen’s. NYC, circa 1946. Source The author’s personal photo
collection
Preface

Richard Ned Lebow may be the last of that generation of European refugees who
left Europe to have an illustrious American career in political science.1 Educated in
the United States, he received a BA in political science from the University of
Chicago in 1963, an MA in international relations from Yale in 1964 and a Ph.D. in
political science from The City University of New York in 1968. As he once told
me, “I’ve been paying in to TIAA-CREF [the nation-wide faculty pension fund] for
almost 50 years!” Yet this preface should not be regarded as a eulogy. Indeed, Ned
has published six authored or co-authored books in the last 4 years—years when he
serenely sailed past his 70th birthday. It is a number that many people would
consider ‘a career’ in itself.
Ned has taught at some of America’s more renowned universities: The City
College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Cornell,
Dartmouth, Ohio State and Pittsburgh. He now works in the War Studies
Department of King’s College London, arguably the best department in its field,
and is a fellow at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge—where he routinely
enjoys the benefit of high table.
Then again, it is hard to define Ned’s ‘field,’ given that he has taught courses on
political science, international relations, political psychology, political theory, and
Greek literature and philosophy. Indeed, after his 70th birthday, he moved to
King’s and developed new courses on the philosophy of science, scope and
methods, and Greek conceptions of order and justice. His 19 scholarly authored or
co-authored books, 12 edited books, and his more than two hundred author or
co-author articles reflect that diversity of interests.
I will return to Ned’s astonishing list of accomplishments, and his broad and
deep intellectual contribution. But to only discuss that in this preface would be
one-dimensional. I am fortunate enough to have known Ned as a student, a col-
league and subsequently as a co-author and friend. Working with him in all three

1
Simon Reich, Ph.D., Professor in the Division of Global Affairs and Department of Political
Science at Rutgers Newark; e-mail: Reichs@rutgers.edu.

ix
x Preface

dimensions has revealed aspects of his capabilities and personality not discernable
from his long list of publications and professional accomplishments.
I could provide stories from all three realms. But my main point is illustrated by
our very first encounter in 1984 when I entered the graduate program of the
Government Department at Cornell University and I enrolled in a graduate seminar
in International Relations co-taught by Ned and Lawrence Scheinman. Our first set
of readings included Kenneth Waltz’s magnum opus, Theory of International
Politics. Ned began the class with a characteristic tour de force in which he swiftly
articulated and then dismantled the central propositions of Waltz’s book. He then
prepared us to move on to the second reading. With what I can only explain in
hindsight as a mixture of (great) naivety and (mild) arrogance, I raised my hand to
interrupt Ned’s steadily paced analysis. Ned gazed at me with mild incredulity as
I suggested that Waltz’s book deserved a more thorough interrogation. He
responded that he respectfully disagreed, at which point I volunteered to “play the
role of Ken Waltz for the remainder of the semester.” Ned was clearly amused by
my suggestion and gleefully accepted the offer of combat. And so our (albeit a very
one-sided) joust began. At the conclusion of that first class, several students warned
me that my offer amounted to professional suicide. Had not I heard of Lebow’s
ferocious reputation? My grade, they told me, would surely suffer. He would be
merciless. I cannot possibly suggest that I knew better at the time. Of course, Ned
enjoyed himself for the remainder of the semester, as he swatted away my vain
attempts. But, in retrospect, what I did come to understand about him was his thirst
for intellectual engagement—and his generosity. Predictably, perhaps, he awarded
me the highest grade in the class at the end of the semester. Heaven knows if
I deserved it.
Beyond the numeric benchmarks, Ned’s work is remarkable as much for its
breadth as its quality. Few have published with such frequency, to such high
standards, with such repeated recognition and criticism, over the course of five
decades. The hallmark of his first books and articles was an effort to bridge
international relations, psychology, and history. His early work, most cogently
represented by the publication of White Britain and Black Ireland: The Nature of
Colonial Stereotypes, focused on developing a dissonance-based explanation for
prejudice and stereotypes. In comparative application to the struggle for civil rights
by African-Americans, this most different research design demonstrated how the
‘distancing’ of subjugated peoples provided a context for denying them broadly
accepted entitlements.
His work in the 1980s and 1990s moved Ned into the mainstream debates within
international relations. His focus remained on the underlying causes of conflict,
albeit it with a characteristically subversive approach in developing prescriptions
for its prevention and management. Between Peace and War: The Nature of
International Crisis, published in 1981, used evidence from 26 crises between 1898
and 1967 to develop a conceptual and empirical critique of deterrence as a theory
and strategy of conflict management. Leaders inevitably filtered information in a
biased manner under domestic pressures, he argued, and derived unrealistic
expectations as a result. Subsequently, Psychology and Deterrence (1984),
Preface xi

co-authored with Robert Jervis and Janice Gross Stein, in addition to a series of
articles in the Journal of Social Issues and World Politics (1987–90) that were also
co-authored with Janice, developed this line of reasoning both analytically and
empirically, and with it a set of resulting coping strategies. The significance of the
application of this work was such that Ned accepted a post serving as a
scholar-in-residence in the Central Intelligence Agency in the Carter administration.
By 1994, he co-authored We All Lost the Cold War, again with Janice Gross
Stein. The book reconstructs two Cold War crises (the Cuban Missile Crisis and the
1973 Middle Eastern War) from the perspective of multiple participants through a
combination of previously classified but newly available American and Soviet
documents and interviews with former officials from both sides. Drawing from
cognitive and motivational psychology, the authors analyzed how political leaders
collected and evaluated information, as well as the lessons they derived. One of the
book’s principal findings is that the desire to demonstrate resolve proved far less
effective in mitigating crises than do reassurance strategies. The book, notably, was
selected by Choice as one of the ten most important books published that year.
Ned’s focus on utilizing cognitive and psychological theories to advance the
understanding of conflict management was therefore fruitful and widely recognized.
But even those major successes pale in comparison to the significance of Ned’s
work on questions of the importance of culture and ethics for foreign policy that
characterized the first decade of this century. His Tragic Vision of Politics, pub-
lished in 2003, re-examined the roots of classical realism through the work of
Thucydides, Clausewitz, and Hans Morgenthau. In the book, Ned argues that
interest and ethics are not only reconcilable with concepts outside the purview of
contemporary structural realism, such as a conception of justice, but that their
linkage is, in fact, essential. In this context, ambiguity and ambivalence are
inevitable and, indeed, should be embraced. This propensity contrasts with the overt
polarities expressed by the dominant strands of contemporary realism. Ned’s fun-
damentalist approach was—returning to a now-familiar theme—subversive in terms
of the dominant ontology. Tragic Vision of Politics was awarded the Alexander
L. George Award for the best book in political psychology from the International
Society of Political Psychology.
A Cultural Theory of International Relations followed 5 years later. This seminal
book draws upon Plato and Aristotle’s understandings of human motives and
identity formation in linking constructivism to its intellectual roots. Ned develops
ideal-type worlds associated with three motives—appetite, spirit, reason—and one
emotion—fear—and demonstrates how each generates a different logic concerning
cooperation, conflict, and risk-taking. The product is the formulation of a con-
structivist theory of international relations. Widespread recognition soon followed:
A Cultural Theory of International Relations won two awards: the Paul Schroeder
and Robert Jervis Award from the American Political Science Association for the
best book in international relations and history and the Susan Strange Award of the
British International Studies Association for the best book of the year.
In the last 5 years, Ned’s work has branched out in several directions. Each has
proven to be remarkably successful. The first track has been his work on
xii Preface

counterfactuals as a method of analysis. Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and

International Relations, published in 2010, uses counterfactual case studies of the
origins of World War I and the end of the Cold War to explore non-linear causation
and the role of contingency in international relations. Ned conducted surveys and
experiments to study how foreign policy experts, historians and international
relations scholars understand historical causation and the ways in which their
beliefs influence and generally limit their understanding. Ned returned to the theme
of counterfactuals four years later with the publication of his first, highly successful,
mass-market book, a best seller entitled Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!: A World
Without World War I. He argues that World War I was highly contingent and might
have been avoided if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated. In
defense of this claim, he constructs both best-case and worst-case accounts that
might have resulted in its absence and illustrates them with alternative biographies
of political and military leaders and prominent artists, scientists, sports figures and
entertainers. Coinciding with the centennial of the outbreak of war, this work
caught the imagination on both sides of the Atlantic. It became the basis for
discussion and conjecture in the popular media. Indeed, it was the subject of a
three-part series on National Public Radio in the United States.
In contrast, at least methodologically, Ned clearly developed some of the for-
mulations first addressed in A Cultural Theory in his other book published in 2010,
Why Nations Fight: The Past and Future of War. It is based on a data set of all wars
from 1648 to the present that involved at least one great or rising power. He coded
all 94 such cases to determine the initiator, their motive for war (appetite, honor, or
fear) and the outcome. In some wars there was more than one motive or initiator.
Yet, 62 % of wars were motivated by honor—they were fought to establish
international ‘standing’ or for reasons of revenge. This finding obviously throws
down an intellectual challenge to realist assumptions that wars are fought for
material gain or enhanced security. Nonrational emotions play a far more important
role, he argued, as initiators failed to conduct any reasonable assessment of the
likely risks and costs of war—and miscalculated as a result.
By 2012, Ned returned to psychological themes—in this case of the ambivalence
of personality, and its clash with our conception of ourselves as consistent. In The
Politics and Ethics of Identity, he contended that the defining psychological feature
of modernity is the tension between our reflective and social selves. To address this
problem, he argued, Westerners have developed four generic strategies of identity
construction that are associated with four distinct political orientations: conser-
vatism, totalitarianism, liberalism, and anarchism. Yet our personal search for the
features that distinguish us as unique is overtly in tension with these formulations.
In contrast, he argues, the premise that there is such a thing as an identity is false.
A jumble of self-identifications masks the fact that we are nothing at our core but
raw appetites. Multiple affiliations and roles control and channel these appetites in
ways that can be beneficial, but also constraining- for example we define people as
members of ‘out groups,’ from whom we are distinct. Recognition, almost inevi-
tably, followed: for a second time one of his books was awarded the Alexander
L. George Award for best book of the year from the International Society
Preface xiii

of Political Psychology. In National Identifications and International Relations,

Ned extended his argument about identity to states and international society. He
examined the complex relationship between identities and policies. States, Ned
contended, also have multiple identities based on their roles, affiliations, bodies
(people and territories), and pasts. In so doing, he critiqued the dominant con-
structivist approach to identity in international relations.
Most recently, 2014 proved to be a remarkable year—one in which Ned pub-
lished three books. In addition to his Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!, a second—
Constructing Cause in International Relations—extended his work on causation. In
it, Ned developed a constructivist understanding of the concept, one in which he
concludes that no formulation is logically defensible and universal in its coverage.
In practice, causal inference is always rhetorical and must be judged on grounds of
practicality. Thus, he developed the idea of “inefficient causation” that builds on
general understandings and idiosyncratic features of context.
The final component of this triumvirate is Good-Bye Hegemony! Power and
Influence in the Global System, which Ned and I co-authored together. Clearly, it is
this book about which I can speak with the greatest authority. Good-bye Hegemony!
entailed a critique of the manner by which liberals and realists continue to dominate
a debate about America’s supposed hegemonic role in the world. They do so largely
without recognition or admission of the decline of both American social and
material sources of influence. Ned’s contribution to this manuscript was incalcu-
lable. But this short list provides brief illustration of his intellectual acuity: an
extended section on how Greek philosophers distinguished between notions of
power and of influence; how this distinction relates to contemporary IR theory;
a discussion of the application of the general concept of legitimacy in the social
sciences and its application by constructivists; a section on how liberals and realists
think about hegemony, power and influence in the current debates about US foreign
policy; and another on the use of counterfactuals as a methodology in the field.
Ned’s contribution in terms of the empirical dimensions of the manuscript is just as
impressive. It includes a case study on North Korean nuclear proliferation; a
counterfactual case study on Mexican–US drug policy; and a comparative assess-
ment of US policy in Iraq and Libya. To this, I should add, he demonstrates his
knowledge of cinema—by drawing analogies between our book and two famous
old movies—Goodbye Lenin at the introduction and Sunset Boulevard in the
conclusion.
In a discipline in which research agendas often narrow over the span of a career,
Ned continues to expand his areas of enquiry, while sustaining a capacity for
perceptive and influential commentary in a way that consistently, commandingly,
and eloquently challenges convention. The pace of publication, the quality of the
published work, and the critical reaction to his most recent work suggests that there
is no sign that he is letting up at a point in his career, a juncture where most of his
peers in their 70s have retired. Yet what is so striking to witness first-hand, as a
co-author, is the seamless way he integrates these varied strands so easily and
effectively.
xiv Preface

Inevitably, no preface can do justice to the depth and sophistication of Ned’s

work—nor the accolades he has enjoyed as a result. I am precluded by time and
space from discussing so much of his important and successful other work. His
co-edited book with Toni Erskine Tragedy and International Relations, for
example, won the Choice award for academic titles in 2013. His co-authored article
with Benjamin Valentino, ‘Lost in Transition: A Critique of Power Transition
Theories,’ that was published in the journal International Relations in 2009 is a
powerful analytical and empirical rebuke to the central proposition of power
transition theories. Long overdue, Ned received the Distinguished Scholar Award
from the International Security Section of the International Studies Association in
recognition of his work in 2014.
Yet, in surveying Ned’s accomplishments, three observations are striking. The
first is that his work has become increasingly sophisticated and nuanced over time,
even as he has remained faithful to a Weberian approach that effectively under-
mines many the shibboleths of international relations. The second is the remarkable
fact that the quantity of his work has—if possible—increased over time—without
any sacrifice to quality. And yet, in what the laws of physics might conceive of as a
paradox, he has managed to develop new thematic research programs on so many
fronts in recent years—ones that stretch epistemologically, methodologically, and
substantively. Several renowned scholars developed these three points in depth in
the chapters that follow.
Yet I conclude with some personal observations. Ned remains as intellectually
inquisitive and playful as when we first met in 1984. He has delighted in chal-
lenging the assumptions unquestioned by others, and in doing so has pushed for-
ward the frontiers of several research programs. He has retained his sense of
humanity and humility. None of us could ask for more.

June 2015 Simon Reich

Professor of Global Affairs and Political Science
Division of Global Affairs
Rutgers, State University of New Jersey
Newark, USA

Simon Reich holds an appointment as a professor in the Division of Global Affairs and
Department of Political Science at Rutgers Newark. He is the author or editor of ten books and
over 50 articles and book chapters. His work has been published in Governance, International
Interactions, International Organization, International Security, and the Review of International
Political Economy. Reich’s work has been translated into Dutch, French, German, and Japanese.
Reich’s most recent book, Good-bye Hegemony! Power and Influence in the Global System (with
Richard Ned Lebow), was published in the spring of 2014 by Princeton University Press. It will be
translated and published in Chinese. His new major project focuses on American Grand Strategy in
the twenty-first century. Reich’s public service has included working at the US Congressional
Office of Technology Assessment, as Director of Research and Analysis at the Royal Institute for
International Affairs (Chatham House), and as inaugural director of the Ford Institute for Human
Security at the University of Pittsburgh. (See at: < http://dga.rutgers.edu/index.php/faculty/
member/simon-f-reich/ >).
Preface xv

References

Jervis, Robert, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein. Psychology and Deterrence.
Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, 1985.
Lebow, Richard Ned. White Britain and Black Ireland: The Influence of Stereotypes on Colonial
Policy. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976.
Lebow, Richard Ned. Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis. Baltimore and
London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
Lebow, Richard Ned. “Beyond Deterrence,” co-authored with Janice Stein. Special issue of
Journal of Social Issues 43, No. 4 (1987), pp. 5–71.
Lebow, Richard Ned. “Beyond Deterrence: Building Better Theory,” (co-authored with Janice
Gross Stein), Journal of Social Issues 43, No. 4 (1987), pp. 155–69.
Lebow, Richard Ned. “Conventional and Nuclear Deterrence: Are the Lessons Transferable?”
Journal of Social Issues 43, No. 4 (1987), pp. 171–91.
Lebow, Richard Ned. We All Lost the Cold War, co-authored with Janice Gross Stein (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994).
Lebow, Richard Ned. The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Lebow, Richard Ned. A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008.
Lebow, Richard Ned. Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2010.
Lebow, Richard Ned. Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Lebow, Richard Ned. The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves (Cambridge:
University Press, 2012).
Lebow, Richard Ned. Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World without World War I.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Lebow, Richard Ned. Constructing Cause in International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2014.
Lebow, Richard Ned. National Identifications and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2016.
Lebow, Richard Ned. Tragedy and International Relations, co-edited with Toni Erskine (London:
Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012).
Lebow, Richard Ned. “Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable,” World Politics 42
(April 1990), pp. 336–69. Co-authored with Janice Gross Stein.
Lebow, Richard Ned. “Rational Deterrence Theory: I Think Therefore I Deter,” co-authored with
Janice Gross Stein, World Politics 41 (January 1989), pp. 208–24.
Lebow, Richard Ned. Good-Bye Hegemony! Power and Influence in the Global System,
co-authored with Simon Reich (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
Lebow, Richard Ned. “Lost in Transition: A Critique of Power Transition Theories,” co-authored
with Benjamin Valentino, International Relations, 23, no. 3 (September 2009), pp. 389–410.
Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics. Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979.
Contents

Part I On Richard Ned Lebow

1 Career as an International Relations Scholar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Richard Ned Lebow

Part II Commentary on Richard Ned Lebow

2 Some Thoughts on Richard Ned Lebow’s The Politics
and Ethics of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Mervyn Frost
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3 Political Psychology: Deterrence and Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Janice Gross Stein
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4 Methods and Philosophy of Science: Psychology, Historical
Science and Inefficient Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 35
Stefano Guzzini
4.1 Opening Black-Boxes: Beyond Systemic Theories
and Behaviorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 36
4.2 Determinism, Counterfactuals and Causation in the Social
World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 39
4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 42
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 43
5 Social Psychological Micro-foundations for International
Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 45
Markus Kornprobst
5.1 Micro-foundations and Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.2 Micro-foundations and Grand Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.3 Micro-foundations, Meta-theory and Methodology . . . . . . . . . 48
5.4 Lebow and His Critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

xvii
xviii Contents

5.5 Conclusion: Lebow and International Relations . . . . . . . . . . . 51

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
6 Lebow’s Theory of International Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 55
Harald Müller
6.1 Introduction: Lebow’s ‘Greek Turn’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 55
6.2 The Prevalence of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 57
6.3 From the Individual to Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 57
6.4 From Society to International Relations, Conceptualization
and a Journey Through History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.5 War and Peace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.6 The Place of Lebow’s Theory in International Relations . . . . . 63
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7 Aristos Eikastes—Ned Lebow as a ‘Themistoclean’ Classicist. . . . . 67
Christian Wendt
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8 Ned Lebow on the Cold War’s End, and Aftermath ........... 75
Robert English
8.1 Realism and the End of the Cold War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8.2 Understanding Gorbachev’s Accommodation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
8.3 Security in a New Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Part III Texts by Richard Ned Lebow

9 Thucydides the Constructivist. . . . . ....................... 87
Richard Ned Lebow
9.1 Realists and Their Critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
9.2 Power, Interest, and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
9.3 Athens as Tragedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
9.4 Nomos Versus Phusis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
9.5 Logoi and Erga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
9.6 Thucydides the Constructivist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
9.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
10 Beyond Parsimony: Rethinking Theories of Coercive
Bargaining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Richard Ned Lebow
10.1 Case Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
10.2 Capabilities Versus Interests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
10.3 The Political Assumptions of Deterrence and Compellence . . . 120
10.4 The Behavioral Assumptions of Deterrence
and Compellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
10.5 General Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Contents xix

10.6 Immediate Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

10.7 Compellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
10.8 Changing Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
10.9 Risk Assessment and Manipulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
10.10 Information and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
10.11 Toward Better Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
10.12 Clashing Schemas Prompt Clashing Assessments of Interests,
Roles and the Status Quo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
10.13 Is Better Theory Possible? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Part IV Bibliography
11 Bibliography of Richard Ned Lebow’s Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Richard Ned Lebow
11.1 Books and Monographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
11.2 Edited Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
11.3 Articles, Chapters and Other Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Dartmouth College, N.H., USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
King’s College, London, UK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
University of Cambridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
About this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
 Part I
On Richard Ned Lebow
Ned in 1947 in the jersey of his favorite college football team. Source The author’s personal photo
collection
Chapter 1
Career as an International Relations
Scholar

Richard Ned Lebow

I received my BA in political science from the University of Chicago in 1963, my

MA in international relations from Yale in1964 and my Ph.D. in political science
from The City University of New York in 1968. I have taught political science,
international relations, political psychology, political theory, methodology, and
public policy at universities in the United States, Canada and Europe, and strategy
at the Naval and National War Colleges. From 2002 until 2012, I was James O.
Freedman Presidential Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. I taught
courses in international relations, political psychology, political theory and Greek
literature and philosophy. Since 2012, I have been professor of international
political theory in the War Studies’ department of King’s College London and
Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge.
My research in the 1960s and early 1970s developed a dissonance-based
explanation for prejudice and stereotypes. I did this at the height of the civil rights
movement, when prejudice was generally explained in Freudian terms. It followed
that prejudice would be extremely difficult to overcome because it was so deeply
rooted in individual psyches. White Britain and Black Ireland: The Nature of
Colonial Stereotypes argued that much prejudice was innocently assimilated and
could be overcome through contact and learning. Its deeper cause was the con-
tradiction between behavior and beliefs. The resulting dissonance could be reduced
by stereotypes that removed Black Americans and colonized peoples from the
domain where accepted values and practices applied, making it easier to treat them
differently. This is why stereotypes of diverse colonial peoples were so similar.
I developed my argument in the course of studying tenacious British stereotypes of
the Irish, which I traced back to the Norman conquest. My research in Ireland
coincided with the emergence of the northern Irish civil rights movement and I
became drawn into contemporary problems in that province. My field experience
and research led to a co-edited book on divided nations and partitioned countries
and an article on sectarian assassination in Belfast.
For the next two decades I explored the roots of international conflict with the
goal of developing more effective strategies of conflict prevention and management.
© The Author(s) 2017 3
R.N. Lebow (ed.), Richard Ned Lebow: A Pioneer in International Relations
Theory, History, Political Philosophy and Psychology, Pioneers in Arts,
Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice 2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-34150-7_1
4 R.N. Lebow

My principal contributions are Between Peace and War: The Nature of

International Crisis (1981), Psychology and Deterrence (1984), co-authored with
Robert Jervis and Janice Gross Stein, and articles in the Journal of Social Issues and
World Politics (1987–90), co-authored with Janice Gross Stein. Between Peace and
War used evidence from 26 crises between 1898 and 1967 to develop a conceptual
and empirical critique of deterrence as a theory and strategy of conflict manage-
ment. I found that deterrence failed when leaders contemplated challenges of
adversarial commitments as solutions to a combination of domestic and foreign
problems. In this circumstance, they became insensitive to the interests of their
adversaries and whatever efforts they made to demonstrate their capability and
resolve. Leaders contemplating challenges rigged intelligence channels to provide
them with information supportive of their initiatives and denied, distorted and
ignored information or advice that they were unrealistic. Janice and I documented
this phenomenon in a broader range of cases and developed a set of strategies more
effective for coping with challenges that were “need-based,” as opposed to
“opportunity-based.”
This research led to an invitation to become professor of strategy at the Naval
War College in Newport, RI, and then at the National War College in Washington,
DC. I subsequently served as a scholar-in-residence in the Central Intelligence
Agency in the Carter administration where I developed critiques of the Agency’s
approach to strategic analysis and crisis prediction. I strongly opposed the con-
ventional wisdom that the Soviet Union was getting stronger, and explored the
possibilities of growing economic and nationality tensions within the Soviet Union
and their possible foreign policy consequences.
In 1994, Janice Stein and I published We All Lost the Cold War. It reconstructs
two Cold War crises from the perspective of multiple participants. We drew on
cognitive and motivational psychology to analyze the information collection,
evaluation and post-conflict learning of political leaders. Capitalizing on the
opportunity offered by glasnost, Stein and I obtained previously-classified docu-
ments from Soviet and American archives and conducted extensive interviews with
former Soviet and American officials. We reconstructed the Cuban missile crisis of
1962 and the superpower confrontation arising out of the 1973 Middle East war.
We make a plausible case that the Soviet missile deployment was intended to
address Khrushchev’s political and strategic problems; he wanted to protect the
Castro regime, offset Soviet strategic inferiority, jump start a détente with the US so
he could devote more funds to economic development. He was also furious with
Kennedy for going ahead with the deployment of Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
Khrushchev was blind to warnings from his advisors and the Castro brothers that
the missiles would be discovered and provoke a serious confrontation with the
United States. The crisis was the culmination of provocative behavior by insecure
leaders of both superpowers designed to demonstrate resolve. The Cuban and the
Middle East crises were resolved primarily by efforts to clarify interests and reas-
sure the other superpower about one’s own peaceful intentions.
In the first decade of this century I turned to more fundamental questions of
culture and ethics and their importance for foreign policy. Tragic Vision of Politics,
1 Career as an International Relations Scholar 5

published by Cambridge in 2003, resurrects the wisdom of classical realism through

the texts of Thucydides, Clausewitz and Hans Morgenthau. I argue that interest and
ethics are reconcilable at the deepest level of understanding, and that interests
cannot be formulated intelligently outside a language of justice. I further contend
that Greek tragedy provides the basis for an alternative and more productive
ontology for the social sciences. The dominant ontology assumes that egoistic,
autonomous and ahistorical actors are the proper starting point for analysis, and
some would add that system level ‘structures’ determine their behavior. The Greeks
recognized that people are rarely found at the poles of any social continuum (e.g.,
self- versus social identity and interest, honor vs. interest, family loyalties vs. civic
obligations). They thought that those few who are act in ways that are invariably
destructive to themselves and actors around them. At most times and in most
societies, human behavior is found along the continuum between the polar extremes
that tragedy problematizes. Most people and their societies make uneasy, often
illogical, uncomfortable and usually unstable compromises rather than unwavering
commitments to any set of values or responsibilities. Like tragedy, social science
must start from the premise that these polarities define the extremes of the human
condition and are inappropriate starting points for understanding behavior. We must
embrace and represent the diversity and inherent instability of human identities,
interests and motives, and their complex interactions with the discourses, social
practices and institutions they generate and sustain.
Tragic Vision of Politics opens with a short story, “Nixon in Hell,” (see
PAHSEP 5, Chap. 6) which introduces the principal normative argument of the
book that leaders of government and institutions should be held accountable to the
same ethical standards as private individuals. Like tragedy, and art more generally,
the story serves its purpose by arousing the emotions and engaging the minds of
readers. The Greeks understood that cooperation and conflict alike result from the
interplay of emotions and reason, and I use their understanding and my story to
critique existing theories of cooperation, offer an alternative and make the case for
the instrumental value of ethical behavior. My most important claim is that foreign
policies in accord with existing ethical norms are more likely to succeed than those
at odds with them. I contend that great powers are their own worst enemies; their
security is undermined more by their behavior than by that of adversaries.
A Cultural Theory of International Relations, published by Cambridge in 2008,
draws on Plato and Aristotle’s understandings of human motives and identity
formation to formulate the first truly constructivist theory of international relations.
Both philosophers stress the power of the spirit (thumos), which gives rise to the
universal desire for self-esteem. I demonstrate how it influences political behavior
at every level of social aggregation. I develop ideal-type worlds associated with
three motives—appetite, spirit, reason—and the emotion of fear—and show how
each generates its own logic of cooperation, conflict and risk-taking. I demonstrate
the utility of my theory in historical case studies ranging from classical Greece to
the war in Iraq and use those cases to develop a novel explanation for the rise of the
state and the causes of war and reformulate and extend prospect theory. My theory
6 R.N. Lebow

also establishes a framework for understanding transformations of regional and

international systems.
My interest in counterfactuals arose from my critique of deterrence. The strategy
of deterrence was based on the assumption that Hitler could have been deterred and
World War II prevented if only France and Britain had stood firm and not appeased
the German dictator. None of the proponents of deterrence had seriously investi-
gated their “what-if” claim. I began to examine not only this case but also how
policymakers routinely used counterfactuals to understand the behavior of others
and to reach policy decisions. Janice Stein and I wrote a book chapter on the use of
counterfactuals by Kennedy and Khrushchev in the Cuban missile crisis. We
showed how questionable these counterfactuals were, but also that they played an
important role in shaping the thinking of both superpower leaders. I subsequently
coedited Unmaking the West: “What-If” Scenarios that Rewrite World History. It
used counterfactuals to probe the causes and contingency of the phenomenal suc-
cess of the West in the modern era.
I sponsored Unmaking the West when I was director of the Mershon Center at
The Ohio State University from 1996 to 2002. I organized three other projects at
Mershon that became edited volumes: Ending the Cold War (2003), The Politics of
Memory in Postwar Europe (2006), and Theory and Evidence in Comparative
Politics and International Relations. Politics of Memory was the first comparative
case study of how memories of World War II have been constructed and revised in
seven European countries: France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Italy,
and the USSR-Russia. In the introduction, I theorize the ways in which construc-
tions of the past were developed and defended by actors to serve specific psy-
chological and political needs. The contributors, mostly young scholars from these
countries document this contention and how these constructions were advanced and
contested in diverse fora. They explore the consequences of these struggles for
democratization and relations with neighbors.
At Dartmouth, where I started teaching in 2002, I returned to the question of
counterfactuals. Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations
(2010) uses counterfactuals to explore non-linear causation and the role of con-
tingency in the origins of World War I and the end of the Cold War. I conducted
surveys and experiments to study how foreign policy experts, historians and
international relations scholars understand historical causation and the ways in
which their beliefs influence and generally limit their understanding. By means of a
short story and comparative analysis of two novels, one of them counterfactual, I
extend my exploration of the relationship between fact and fiction and factual and
counterfactual. I show how these binaries are differences of degree, not of kind
because all facts are a product of invented categories and most counterfactual
arguments build on facts. I argue that the tensions between them can be exploited
creatively by social science to gain a better understanding of its own epistemo-
logical and substantive assumptions.
In 2010, I also published Why Nations Fight: The Past and Future of War. It is
based on a data set of all wars from 1648 to the present that involved at least one
great or rising power. I coded these 94 cases to determine the initiator, motive for
1 Career as an International Relations Scholar 7

war (appetite, honor or fear) and outcome. In some wars there was more than one
motive or initiator, or at least arguments to this effect by historians. The over-
whelming majority of wars—62 %—were motivated by honor; fought, that is, for
standing or revenge. This percentage did not change over the centuries. Wars fought
for material gain all but ended in the late eighteenth century and those motivated by
security, which accounted for 18 % of the total, were unevenly distributed. General
wars that involve most or all of the great powers were invariably triggered by
miscalculated escalation that resulted in part from the failure of initiators to conduct
any reasonable assessment of the likely risks and costs of war. I attribute the overall
decline of war to three waves of learning that broke over the Western world and
spread to varying degrees to other parts of the world. My analysis offers a unique
perspective on the likelihood of future wars and of ways of preventing them. It also
makes the case for the role of ideas in international relations, in contrast to the
material explanations put forward by most theories.
In 2012, I published The Politics and Ethics of Identity. It starts from the premise
that we are multiple, fragmented, and evolving selves who nevertheless believe we
have unique and consistent identities. I ask what accounts for this illusion, and more
fundamentally, why the problem of identity became so central to post-war schol-
arship, fiction and popular culture. I contend that the defining psychological feature
of modernity is the tension between our reflective and social selves. To overcome
this tension, Westerners developed four generic strategies of identity construction,
two that attempt to reduce reflexivity and autonomy and two that embrace them.
They are associated with four distinct political orientations: conservatism, totali-
tarianism, liberalism and anarchism. I develop my argument through the reading of
ancient and modern literary, philosophical and musical texts. I am particularly
proud of my chapter on the Mozart-Da Ponte operas, which I describe as thought
experiments designed to critique ancien régime and Enlightenment identities and
grope toward an alternative in Così fan tutte.
Encouraged by Hollywood, popular fiction and therapists, people search for their
inner selves. Groups and corporations develop self-identifications. Political leaders
encourage us to distinguish ourselves from others and to think of ourselves as
superior to them. These totalizing and discriminatory practices are harmful to our
individuality and well-being, and rest, moreover, on the false premise that there is
such a thing as an identity. In practice, we are a jumble of self-identifications that
arise from our affiliations, roles and relationship to our bodies. They are labile,
frequently in conflict, and rise and fall in importance as a function of context and
priming. To turn to them for political or ethical guidance is to risk incoherence.
Stripped of our self-identifications, we are left with nothing but raw appetites.
Multiple affiliations and roles control and channel these appetites in ways that can
be beneficial, but also constraining. Attempts by groups and politicians to
emphasize single identifications do injustice to our multiplicity and encourage us to
deny what we share with members of the “out groups” they create.
One of my principal findings is that we do not need images, let alone stereo-
types, of ‘others’ to create ourselves. This idea finds initial expression in the epics
of Homer and Virgil, but is supported by recent research in child rearing and social
8 R.N. Lebow

psychology. Healthy identity construction for children, groups and nations requires
us to draw closer to those from whom we are separating. Psychological research
indicates that negative images of others are a special case, most likely to arise when
groups compete for the same scarce resources. Although it is apparent that politi-
cians can readily propagate such images for reasons of their own. Identity con-
struction is thus a dialectical process, and we need to pay as much attention to the
drawing closer together side of the equation as we do to the separation side. This
insight has important ethical and political implications, which I draw out in the
conclusion.
In 2012, I also coedited Tragedy and International Relations with Toni Erskine.
It elaborates ancient Greek and modern understanding of tragedy and explores the
applications to international relations. Contributors offer different perspectives on
tragedy and different views about whether knowledge of tragedy has the potential to
reduce its frequency in international affairs.
I published three books in 2014. Constructing Cause in International Relations
continues my epistemological and methodological agenda by developing a con-
structivist understanding of cause. I review understandings of cause in physics and
philosophy and conclude that no formulation is logically defensible and universal in
its coverage. This is because cause is not a feature of the world but a cognitive
shorthand we use to make sense of the world. In practice, causal inference is always
rhetorical and must be judged on grounds of practicality. I offer a new approach
—“inefficient causation”—that is constructivist in its emphasis on the reasons
people have for acting as they do but turns to other approaches to understand the
consequences of the behavior of multiple actors. It builds on general understandings
and idiosyncratic features of context. It is particularly suitable to the social world
and the study of international relations. I illustrate the utility of my approach in a
case study of the rise of the territorial state. I show how developments in linear
perspective, portraiture and map making created new visual frames of references
that made it possible, if not necessary, to imagine the territorial state.
Many policymakers, journalists and scholars insist that U.S. hegemony is
essential to ward off global chaos. Good-Bye Hegemony! Power and Influence in
the Global System, co-authored with Simon Reich, argues that U.S. is not a
hegemon and certainly not recognized as such by other states. Hegemony is a
fiction propagated to support a large defense establishment, justify American claims
to world leadership and buttress the self-esteem of voters. It is contrary to American
interests and the global order. We argue that hegemony should find expression in
agenda setting, economic custodianship, and the sponsorship of global initiatives.
Today, these functions are diffused through the system, with European countries,
China and lesser powers making important contributions. In contrast, the U.S. has
often been a source of political and economic instability.
Rejecting the focus on power common to American realists and liberals, Simon
and I offer a novel analysis of influence. We differentiate influence from power and
power from material resources. Our analysis shows why the U.S., the greatest
power the world has ever seen, is increasingly incapable of translating its power
1 Career as an International Relations Scholar 9

into influence. We use our analysis to formulate a more realistic place for America
in world affairs.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives: A World without World War I is my first
attempt at a mass market book. I argue that World War I was highly contingent and
might have been avoided if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had never been assassinated.
I construct narrative accounts of the most plausible best and worst worlds that might
have resulted in its absence. Neither world is necessarily the most likely, but they
establish the envelope in which any real world would have been found. I flesh out
these worlds with counterfactual biographies of political and military leaders and
prominent artists, scientists, sports figures and entertainers. In the better world,
there is no World War II, Holocaust, nuclear weapons or Cold War, but science,
medicine and toleration develop at a much slower pace. There is no Israel, Hitler
becomes a quack medicine salesman and English is not the world’s dominant
language. Neither John F. Kennedy nor Barack Obama become president and
Richard Nixon becomes an evangelical minister. African-American jazz musicians
migrate en masse to Europe and Curt Flood integrates baseball in the 1960s. The
polio vaccine and safe commercial air travel are long delayed and personal com-
puters only become available in the 21st century.
In the worst world narrative, Winston Churchill becomes an advocate of Indian
independence and a long cold war develops between nuclear-armed Germany and
Britain. German national security advisor Heinz Kissinger provokes a serious crisis
between these adversaries. Barack Obama is governor of Hawaii and has his spine
stiffened by his mentor and former high school coach Jackie Robinson. By means of
these alternative worlds, I create vantage points to assess our historical world and
the extent to which World War I made it this way.
National Identifications and International Relations extends my argument about
identity to states and international society. States also have multiple identities based
on their roles, affiliations, bodies (people and territories) and pasts. Unlike people
they have no ‘I’ to respond to and adjudicate among the multiple identities officials
and other actors of all kinds attempt to impose on them. Their identities are political
constructions that are hotly contested and rise and fall in importance. I examine the
complex relationship between identifications and policies, critique the dominant
constructivist approach to identity in international relations and offer what I believe
is a more sophisticated understanding.
Most national identifications aim to highlight the alleged distinctiveness and
superiority of a people or a nation. Claims of superiority, and even more, justifi-
cations for privileges based on them, are ultimately appeals to the principle of
fairness at the expense of equality. Elites who propagate these identifications and
claims invoke all kinds of sleights of hand to square the two principles, but rarely
do so credibly in the eyes of other actors.
National identifications play a complex role in foreign policy and international
relations. They generally buttress the self-esteem of leaders and peoples, and can
abet or stand in the way of policies intended to advance material or security
interests. They also facilitate or retard changes in regional and international society.
10 R.N. Lebow

Ultimately, the transformation of these societies depends on the character and

relative importance of different national identifications.
My recent research continues my long-standing interests on several fronts. Max
Weber and International Relations explores his methodological and substantive
contributions to our field. Weber’s approach to international relations is anchored in
Hegel’s view of the state and Social Darwinism and its emphasis on survival of the
fittest. Weber’s epistemology rests on different, and even contradictory foundations:
Kant and historicism. His approach to politics and social science offers a double
cautionary tale. It indicates lack of consistency between political and scholarly
commitments, a phenomenon that finds ample contemporary resonance. It should
also make us more aware of the extent to which our own normative commitments
and theoretical writings are embedded in and restricted by the contemporary
Zeitgeist.
I situate Weber’s approach to knowledge in the context of controversies between
historicists and positivists, and historicists and neo-Kantians. Weber sought to build
on these traditions while finessing their drawbacks and limitations. The result is a
definition of knowledge as causal inference about singular events that insists on the
individual as its unit of analysis, uses rationality as an ideal type, and counterfactual
thought experiments to evaluate putative causes. Weber’s approach has unresolved
tensions and problems. The most important is the contradiction between his
recognition of the subjective nature of the values and interests that motivate
research but insistence on objective means by which it might be conducted. Facts
and values are not so easily reconciled, and Weber recognizes that they influence, if
not determine, the questions we ask, the methods we choose to research them, what
we consider relevant evidence and the inferences we draw from it. Weber
acknowledges that questions are subjective, and answers too because they depend
on particular contextual configurations. So all knowledge is ultimately cultural and
local in nature. I explore some of the lessons of Weber’s project and its problems
for contemporary international relations theory.
I am conducting a set of experiments to follow up on the those I did a couple of
years earlier that indicate that students who have read a Greek tragedy in a uni-
versity course are more sensitive to distributional justice. In the dollar ultimatum
game they are more likely to offer 50–50 splits than students who have not read a
tragedy. This even holds true for those studying economics, which other studies
indicate are more likely than other students to try to keep most of the dollar for
themselves. I hope to replicate this finding, and if successful, conduct further
experiments to determine if people learn ethical lessons from tragedy for the rea-
sons stipulated by Aristotle. By doing so, I hope to pioneer the field of experimental
classics.
I am working on a theory of political order. It builds on The Tragic Vision of
Politics and A Cultural Theory of International Relations to ask how orders form,
how they evolve, why they decline, and how they are reconstituted. To evaluate
some of the propositions that can be derived from my theory I intend to use
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plate, and both had settled down to a long and peaceful life in Nova
Scotia.
 CHAPTER V.
A FEARFULL FEMALE TRAVAILLER.

In the autumn and winter of the year 1704, Madam Sarah Knight,
a resident of Boston, made a journey on horseback from Boston to
New York, and returned in the same manner. It was a journey difficult
and perilous, “full of buggbears to a fearfull female travailler,” and
which “startled a masculine courage,” but which was performed by
this woman with the company and protection only of hired guides,
the “Western Post,” or whatever chance traveller she might find
journeying her way, at a time when brave men feared to travel
through New England, and asked for public prayers in church before
starting on a journey of twenty miles. She was probably the first
woman who made such a journey, in such a manner, in this country.
Madam Knight was the daughter of Captain Kemble, of Boston,
who was in 1656 set two hours in the public stocks as a punishment
for his “lewd and unseemly behavior,” which consisted in his kissing
his wife “publicquely” on the Sabbath Day, upon the doorstep of his
house, when he had just returned from a voyage and absence of
three years.
The diary which Madam kept on this eventful trip contains the
names of no persons of great historical interest, though many of
historical mention; but it is such a vivacious and sprightly picture of
the customs of the time, and such a valuable description of localities
as they then appeared, that it has an historical interest of its own,
and is a welcome addition to the few diaries and records of the times
which we possess.
Everything was not all serene and pleasant in the years 1704 and
1705 in New England. Events had occurred which could not have
been cheerful for Madam Knight to think of when riding through the
lonely Narragansett woods and along the shores of the Sound. News
of the frightful Indian massacre at Deerfield had chilled the very
hearts of the colonists. At Northampton shocking and most
unexpected cruelties had been perpetrated by the red men. At
Lancaster, not any too far from Boston, the Indians had been most
obstreperous. We can imagine Madam Knight had no very pleasant
thoughts of these horrors when she wrote her description of the red
men whom she saw in such numbers in Connecticut. Bears and
wolves, too, abounded in the lonely woods of Massachusetts and
Connecticut. The howls of wolves were heard every night, and
rewards were paid by New England towns for the heads of wolves
that were killed, provided the heads were brought into town and
nailed to the side of the meeting-house. Twenty-one years later than
Madam Knight’s journey, in 1725, twenty bears were killed in one
week in September, within two miles of Boston, so says the History
of Roxbury; and all through the eighteenth century bears were
hunted and killed in upper Narragansett. Hence “buggbears” were
not the only bears to be dreaded on the lonely journey.
The year 1704 was memorable also because it gave birth to the
first newspaper in the colonies, the Boston News-Letter. Only a few
copies were printed each week, and each copy contained but four or
five square feet of print, and the first number contained but one
advertisement—that of the man who printed it.
When Madam Knight’s journal was published in New York by Mr.
Theodore Dwight, in 1825, the editor knew nothing of the diarist, not
even her family name; hence it was confidently believed by many
that the journal was merely a clever and entertaining fiction. In 1852,
however, Miss Caulkins published her history of the town of New
London, and contradicted that belief, for she gave an account of the
last days of Madam Knight, which were spent in Norwich and New
London. Madam Knight’s daughter married the Colonel Livingston
who is mentioned in the journal, and left no children. From a
descendant of Mrs. Livingston’s administratrix, Mrs. Christopher, the
manuscript of the journal was obtained for publication in 1825, it
having been carefully preserved all those years. In Blackwood’s
Magazine for the same year an article appeared, entitled Travelling
in America, which reprinted nearly all of Madam Knight’s journal, and
which showed a high appreciation of its literary and historical merits.
In 1858 it was again printed by request in Littell’s Living Age, with
some notes of Madam Knight’s life, chiefly compiled from Miss
Caulkins’ History of New London, and again provoked much inquiry
and discussion. Recently a large portion of the journal has been
reprinted in the Library of American Literature, with many alterations,
however, in the spelling, use of capitals, and punctuation, thus
detracting much from the interest and quaintness of the work; and
most unnecessarily, since it is perfectly easy to read and understand
it as first printed, when, as the editor said, “the original orthography
was carefully preserved for fear of introducing any unwarrantable
modernism.”
The first edition is now seldom seen for sale, and being rare is
consequently high-priced. The little shabby, salmon-colored copy of
the book which I saw was made interesting by two manuscript
accounts of Sarah Knight, which were inserted at the end of the
book, and which are very valuable, since they give positive proof of
the reality of the fair traveller, as well as additional facts of her life.
The first account was in a fine old-fashioned, unpunctuated
handwriting, on yellow, time-stained paper, and read thus:—
Madam Knight was born in Boston She was the daughter of
Capt. Kemble who was a rich merchant of Boston he was a
native of Great Britain settled in Boston built him a large
house for that day near New North Square in the year 1676
this daughter Sarah Kemble was married to a son of a
London trader by the name of Knight he died abroad and left
her a smart young widow in October 1703 she made a
journey to New York to claim some property of his there. She
returned on horse-backe March 1705 Soon after her return
she opened a school for children Dr. Frankelin and Dr Saml
Mather secured their first rudiments of Education from her her
parents both died and as She was the only child they left she
continued to keep school in the Mansion house till the year
1714. She then sold the estate to Peter Papillion he died not
long after in the year 1736 Thomas Hutchinson Esqr
purchased the estate of John Wolcott, who was administrator
 of the Papillion estate Mr Hutchinson gave the estate to his
daughter Hannah who was the wife of Dr Saml Mather. The
force of Madam Knight’s Diamond Ring was displayed on
several panes of glass in the old house in the year 1763 Dr
Mather had the house new glazed and one pane of glass was
preserved as a curiosity for years till 1775 it was lost at the
conflagration when Charlestown was burnt by the British June
17th. The lines on the pane of glass were committed to
memory by the present writer. She was an original genius our
ideas of Madam are formed from hearing Dr Frankelin and Dr
Mather converse about their old school misstress

Through many toils and many frights

I have returned poor Sarah Knights
Over great rocks and many stones
God has preserv’d from fractur’d bones

as spelt on the pane of glass.

Underneath this account was written in the clear, distinct
chirography of Isaiah Thomas, the veteran printer, this endorsement:
—
The above was written by Mrs. Hannabell Crocker, of
Boston, granddaughter of the Rev. Cotton Mather, and
presented to me by that lady.—Isaiah Thomas.
The other manuscript account is substantially the same, though in
a different handwriting; it tells of the pane of glass with the rhymed
inscription being “preserved as a curiosity by an antiquicrity” (which
is a delightful and useful old word-concoction), “until the British set
fire to the town,” in Revolutionary times, and “Poor Madam Knight’s
poetrys, with other curiosities, were consumed.” It says, “She
obtained the honorable title of Madam by being a famous
schoolmistress in her day. She taught Dr. Franklin to write. She was
highly respected by Dr. Cotton Mather as a woman of good wit &
pleasant humour.”
 Sarah Knight was born in 1666, and thus was about thirty-eight
years old when she made her “perilous journey.” She started
October 2d, and did not reach New York until December 6th. Of
course much of this time was spent visiting friends and kinsfolk in
New London and New Haven, and often, too, she had to wait to
obtain companion travellers. She rode upon the first night of her
journey until very late in order to “overtake the post,” and this is the
account of her reception at her first lodging-place:—
My guide dismounted and very complasently and shewed
the door signing to me with his hand to Go in, which I Gladly
did. But had not gone many steps into the room ere I was
interrogated by a young Lady I understood afterwards was the
Eldest daughter of the family, with these, or words to this
purpose, (viz) Law for mee—what in the world brings you
here at this time-a-night? I never see a woman on the Rode
so Dreadfull late in all my Varsall Life. Who are You? Where
are you going? I’m scar’d out of my witts—with much now of
the same Kind I stood aghast Prepareing no reply—when in
come my Guide—to him Madam turn’d roreing out: Lawfull
heart John is it You? how de do? Where in the world are you
going with this woman? Who is She? John made no Ans’r but
sat down in the corner, fumbled out his black Junk, and
saluted that instead of Debb. She then turned agen to mee
and fell anew into her silly questions without asking mee to sit
down. I told her she treated mee very Rudely and I did not
think it my duty to answer her unmannerly Questions. But to
gett ridd of them I told her I come there to have the Posts
company with me to-morrow on my Journey &c. Miss stared
awhile, drew a chair bid me sitt And then run upstairs and
putts on two or three Rings (or else I had not seen them
before) and returning sett herself just before me shewing the
way to Reding, that I might see her Ornaments.
It appears from this account that human nature, or rather feminine
love of display, was the same in colonial times as in the present day.
Very vivid are her descriptions of the various beds upon which she
reposed. This is her entry in her diary after the first night of her
journey:—
I pray’d Miss to shew me where I must Lodg. Shee
conducted me to a parlour in a little back Lento, which was
almost filled with the bedstead, which was so high that I was
forced to climb on a chair to gitt up to ye wretched bed that
lay on it, on which having Strecht my tired Limbs, and lay’d
my head on a Sad-colour’d pillow, I began to think on the
transactions of ye past day.
We can imagine her (if such an intrusive fancy is not impertinent
after one hundred and eighty years), attired in her night-hood and
her “flowered calico night-rayle with high collared neck,” climbing
wearily upon a chair and thence to the mountainous bed with its
dingy pillow. The fashion of wearing “immoderate great rayles” had
been prohibited by law in Massachusetts in 1634, but the garment
mentioned must have been some kind of a loose gown worn in the
day-time, for we cannot fancy that even the meddlesome
interference and aspiring ambition for omnipotence of those Puritan
magistrates would make them dare to attempt to control what kind of
a nightgown a woman should wear.
Here is another vivid description of a night’s lodging, where her
room was shared, as was the country custom of that time (and
indeed for many years later), by the men who had journeyed with
her:—
Arriving at my apartment found it to be a little Lento
Chamber furnished amongst other Rubbish with a High Bedd
and a Low one, a Long Table, a Bench and a Bottomless
chair. Little Miss went to scratch up my Kennell which
Russelled as if shee’d bin in the Barn amongst the Husks,
and supose such was the contents of the tickin—nevertheless
being exceeding weary-down I laid my poor Carkes (never
more tired) and found my Covering as scanty as my Bed was
hard. Anon I heard another Russelling noise in Ye Room—
called to know the matter—Little Miss said shee was making
a bed for the men; who, when they were in Bed complained
their leggs lay out of it by reason of its shortness—my poor
 bones complained bitterly not being used to such Lodgings,
and so did the man who was with us; and poor I made but
one Grone, which was from the time I went to bed to the time
I Riss, which was about three in the morning, Setting up by
the Fire till Light.
The word “lento,” or “lean to,” was sometimes called “linter,” and
you will still hear old-fashioned or aged country-people use the word.
The “lean-to” was the rear portion of a form of house peculiar to New
England, which was two stories high in front, with a roof which
sloped down from a steep gable to a very low single story at the rear.
Madam Sarah speaks with some surprise throughout her travels of
the height of the beds, so it is evident that very towering beds were
not in high fashion in Boston in 1704, in spite of the exceeding tall
four-posters that have descended to us from our ancestors, and
which surely no one could mount in modern days without a chair as
an accessory. Even a chair was not always a sufficient stepping-
block by the bedsides that Madam Sarah found, for she thus writes:
“He invited us to his house, and shewed me two pair of stairs, viz,
one up the loft, and tother up the Bedd, which was as hard as it was
high, and warmed with a hott stone at the foot.”
After the good old Puritan custom of contumelious reviling, in
which clergymen, laymen, and legal lights alike joined, Madam
Knight could show a rare choice of epithets and great fluency of
uncomplimentary description when angered. Having expected to
lodge at the house of a Mr. DeVille in Narragansett, and being
refused, she writes thus of the DeVilles:—
I questioned whether we ought to go to the Devil to be helpt
out of the affliction. However, like the Rest of Deluded souls
that post to ye Infernall denn, Wee made all possible speed to
this Devil’s Habitation; where alliting, in full assurance of good
accommodation, wee were going in. But meeting his two
daughters, as I suposed twins, they so neerly resembled each
other both in features and habit and look’t as old as the Divel
himself, and quite as Ugly. We desired entertainment, but
could hardly get a word out of ’um, till with our Importunity
 telling them our necessity &c they call’d the old Sophister,
who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had bin,
and no or none, was the reply’s he made us to our demands.
Hee differed only in this from the old fellow in tother Country,
hee let us depart. However I thought it proper to warn poor
Travaillers to endeavour to Avoid falling into circumstances
like ours, which at our next Stage I sat down and did as
followeth:—

May all that dread the cruel fiend of night

Keep on and not at this curst Mansion light
Tis Hell: Tis Hell: and Devills here do dwell
Here Dwells the Devill—surely this is Hell.
Nothing but Wants: a drop to cool yo’re Tongue
Cant be procured those cruel Fiends among
Plenty of horrid grins and looks sevear
Hunger and thirst, But pitty’s banish’d here.
The Right hand keep, if Hell on Earth you fear—

Madam Knight had a habit of “dropping into poetry” very readily

and upon almost any subject. Upon the moon, upon poverty, even
upon the noise of drunken topers in the next room to her own. The
night-scene that brought forth the rhymes upon rum was graced by a
conversation upon the derivation of the word Narragansett, and her
report of it is of much interest, and is always placed among the many
and various authorities for, and suggestions about, the meaning of
the word:—
I went to bed which tho’ pretty hard Yet neet and handsome
but I could get no sleep because of the Clamor of some of the
Town-tope-ers in next Room who were entered into a strong
debate concerning ye Signifycation of the name of their
Country (viz) Narraganset. One said it was named so by ye
Indians because there grew a Brier there of a prodigious
Highth and bigness, the like hardly ever known, called by the
Indians Narragansett. And quotes an Indian of so Barberous a
 name for his Author that I could not write it. His Antagonist
Replyd No.—It was from a spring it had its name, which he
well knew where it was, which was extreem cold in summer,
and as Hott as could be imagined in the winter which was
much resorted to by the natives and by them called
Narragansett (Hott & Cold) and that was the originall of their
places name—with a thousand Impertinances not worth
notice, which He uttered with such a Roreing voice &
Thundering blows with the fist of wickedness on the Table that
it pierced my very head. I heartily fretted and wisht ’um
tonguetyed; but with little success.
They kept calling for tother Gill which while they were
swallowing, was some Intermission But presently like Oyle to
fire encreased the flame. I set my Candle on a Chest by the
bedside, and setting up fell to my old way of composing my
Resentments in the following manner:—

I ask thy aid O Potent Rum

To charm these wrangling Topers Dum
Thou hast their Giddy Brains possest
The man confounded with the Beast
And I, poor I, can get no rest
Intoxicate them with thy fumes
O still their Tongues till morning comes

And I know not but my wishes took effect for the dispute
soon ended with tother Dram.
To one who, unused to venturing abroad in boats on stormy
waters, has trusted her bodily safety to one of those ticklish Indian
vehicles, a canoe, this vivid account of the sensations of an early
female colonist in a similar situation may prove of interest; nor do I
think, after the lapse of centuries, could the description be improved
by the added words of our newer and more profuse vocabulary:—
 The Cannoo was very small & shallow so that when we
were in she seemd redy to take in water which greatly terrify’d
me, and caused me to be very circumspect, sitting with my
hands fast on each side, my eyes stedy, not daring so much
as to lodge my tongue a hairs breadth more on one side of
my mouth than tother, nor so much as think on Lotts wife, for
a very thought would have oversett our wherey.
We are so accustomed to hearing of the great veneration and
respect always shown in olden times by children toward their
parents, and the dignified reserve and absolute authority of parents
towards children, that the following scene rather shocks our
established notions:—
Thursday about 3 in the afternoon I set forward with
neighbour Polly & Jemima a girl about 18 years old, who her
father said he had been to fetch out of the Narragansetts and
said they had rode thirty miles that day on a sorry lean Jade
with only a Bagg under her for a pillion which the poor Girl
often complain’d was very uneasy. Wee made Good speed
along wch made poor Jemima make many a sowr face the
mare being a very hard trotter, and after many a hearty &
bitter Oh she at length low’d out: Lawful Heart father! this bare
mare hurts mee Dingeely. I’m direfull sore I vow, with many
words to that purpose. Poor Child—sais Gaffer—she us’t to
serve your mother so. I dont care how mother ust to do, quoth
Jemima in a passionate tone. At which the old man Laught
and kikt his Jade o’ the side, which made her Jolt ten times
harder. About seven that evening we came to New London
Ferry here by reason of a very high wind, we mett with great
difficulty in getting over. The boat tost exceedingly and our
Horses cappered at a very Surprising rate and set us all in a
fright especially poor Jemima who desired father to say So
Jack! to the Jade to make her stand. But the careless parent,
taking no notice of her repeated desires, She Rored out in a
Pasionate manner Pray Suth father Are you deaf? Say So
Jack to the Jade I tell you. The Dutiful Parent obeyed saying
So Jack So Jack as gravely as if he had bin saying Chatchise
 after young Miss who with her fright look’t all the Colours of ye
Rainbow.
It is very evident from entries in her Journal that Madam Knight
thought much of gratifying her appetite, for the food she obtained at
her different resting-places is often described. She says:—
Landlady told us shee had some mutton which shee would
broil. In a little time she bro’t it in but it being pickled and my
Guide said it smelt strong of head-sause we left it and paid six
pence apiece for our dinners which was only smell.
Again, she thus describes a meal:—
Having call’d for something to eat the woman bro’t in a
Twisted thing like a cable, but something whiter, laying it on
the bord, tugg’d for life to bring it into a capacity to spread;
which having with great pains accomplished shee served a
dish of Pork and Cabage I supose the remains of Dinner. The
sause was of a deep purple which I tho’t was boiled in her dye
Kettle; the bread was Indian and everything on the Table
service agreeable to these. I being hungry gott a little down,
but my stomach was soon cloy’d and what cabage I
swallowed served me for a Cudd the whole day after.
The early colonists never turned very readily to Indian meal and
pumpkins—pumpions as they called them in the “times wherein old
Pompion was a saint;” and Johnson, in his Wonder-Working
Providence, reproved them for making a jest of pumpkins, since they
were so good a food. Madam Knight had them offered to her very
often, “pumpkin sause” and “pumpkin bred.” “We would have eat a
morsell ourselves But the Pumpkin and Indian-mixt Bread had such
an aspect, and the Bare-legg’d Punch so awkerd or rather Awfull a
sound that we left both.”
She gives a glimpse of rather awkward table-manners when she
complains that in Connecticut masters permitted their slaves to sit
and eat with them, “and into the dish goes the black Hoof as freely
as the white hand.” Doubtless in those comparatively forkless days
fingers were very freely used at the table.
 She tells many curious facts about Connecticut. Divorces were
plentiful in that State, as they are at the present day. She writes:—
These uncomely Standaways are too much in Vogue
among the English in this Indulgent Colony as their Records
plentifully prove, and that on very trivial matters of which
some have been told me, but are not Proper to be Related by
a Female Pen.
She says they will not allow harmless kissing among the young
people, and she tells of a curious custom at weddings, where the
bridegroom ran away and had to be chased and dragged back by
force to the bride.
Her descriptions of the city of New York; of the public vendues
“where they give drinks;” of the Dutch houses and women; of the
“sley-riding” where she “mett fifty or sixty sleys,” are all very
entertaining. There were few sleighs in Boston at that date.
Everything is compared with “ours in Boston,” or said to be “not like
Boston,” after a fashion still somewhat followed by the Boston
“Female Pen” of the present day. As New York then was only a small
town of five thousand inhabitants, while Big Boston possessed ten
thousand inhabitants, such comparisons were certainly justifiable.
We must give her vivid and vivacious picture of a country “lubber”
in a merchant’s shop:—
In comes a tall country fellow with his Alfogeos full of
Tobaco. He advanced to the middle of the room, makes an
awkward nodd and spitting a large deal of Aromatic Tincture,
he gave a scrape with his shovel-like shoo, leaving a small
shovel-full of dirt on the floor, made a full stop, hugging his
own pretty body with his hands under his arms, Stood Staring
round him like a Catt let out of a Baskett. At last like the
creature Balaam rode on he opened his mouth and said Have
you any Ribinen for Hat bands to sell I pray? The Questions
and answers about the pay being past the Ribin is bro’t and
opened. Bumpkin simpers, cryes, Its confounded Gay I vow;
and beckoning to the door in comes Joan Tawdry, dropping
about 50 curtsies, and stands by him. He shews her the Ribin.
 Law You, sais shee, its right Gent, do you take it, its dreadful
pretty. Then she enquires: Have you any hood silk I pray?
which being brought and bought. Have you any Thred silk to
sew it with? says shee, which being accomodated with they
departed.
Though Madam Knight left no account of the costume which she
wore on her “perilous journey,” we know very well what the fashions
of the time were and of what her dress consisted. She wore a
woollen round-gown, perhaps of camlet, perhaps of calimanco, of
which the puffed sleeves came to the elbow and were finished with
knots of ribbons and ruffles. Riding-habits were then never worn. I
am sure she did not wear a neck-ruff on this journey, but a scarf or
neck-kerchief or “cross cloth” instead. Long gloves of leather or kid
protected her fair hands, and came to the elbow, and were firmly
secured at the top by “glove-tightens” made of braided black
horsehair. A pointed beaver or beaverette hat covered her head; the
hat and peruke had not then reached the excessive size which made
them for a lady’s “riding equipage” so bitterly and openly condemned
in 1737 as an exceeding and abominable affectation. She doubtless
wore instead of the fine, stately peruke, a cap, a “round cap,” which
did not cover the ears, or a “strap cap,” which came under the chin;
or perhaps a “quoif” or a “ciffer”—New England French for coiffure.
During her cold winter ride home she surely donned a hood. One is
described at that date thus: “A woman’s worsted camlet riding-hood
of grayish color faced with crimson coulour’d Persian.” Over her
shoulders she wore a heavy woollen short cloak, or a scarlet
“whittle,” and doubtless also added a “drugget-petticoat” for warmth,
or a “safeguard” for protection against mud. High-heeled pointed
shoes of leather, with knots of green ribbon or silver buckles,
completed Madam Sarah’s picturesque and comfortable attire. One
other useful article of dress, or rather of protection, she surely as a
lady of high gentility carried and wore: a riding-mask made of black
velvet with a silver mouthpiece, or with two little strings with a silver
bead at the end, which she placed in either corner of her mouth, to
hold her mask firmly in place.
 The “nagg” upon which Madam rode was without doubt a pacer,
as were all good saddle-horses at that date. No one making any
pretension to fashion or good style would ride upon a trotting-horse,
nor indeed until Revolutionary times was a trotter regarded as of any
account or worth.
I do not think Madam Knight had a Narragansett pacer, for as soon
as they were raised in any numbers they were sent at once to the
West Indies for the use of the wives and daughters of the wealthy
sugar-planters, and few New England people could afford to own
them. The “horse furniture” of which she speaks included, of course,
her side-saddle and saddle-bag, which held her travelling-wardrobe
and her precious journal.
Madam Sarah Knight did not end her days in Boston. She
removed to Norwich, Conn., and in 1717 it is recorded that she gave
a silver cup for the communion-service of the church there. The town
in gratitude, by vote, gave her liberty to “sitt in the pue where she
was used to sitt in ye meeting house.” She also kept an inn on the
Livingston Farm near New London, and I doubt not a woman of her
large experience kept a good ordinary. No rustling beds, no sad-
colored pillow-bears, no saucy maids, no noisy midnight topers, no
doubtful fricassees, no pumpkin-bread, and, above all, no bare-
legged punch in her house.
It is painful to record, however, that in 1718 the teacher of
Benjamin Franklin and friend of Cotton Mather was indicted and
fined for “selling strong liquor to Indians.”
Altogether, Madam Knight was far ahead of the time in which she
lived. She was a woman of great energy and talent. She kept a
school when a woman-teacher was almost unheard of. She ran a
tavern, a shop. She wrote poetry and a diary. She cultivated a farm,
and owned mills, and speculated largely in Indian lands, and was
altogether a sharp business-woman; and she must have been
counted an extraordinary character in those early days.
 CHAPTER VI.
TWO COLONIAL ADVENTURESSES.

A “strange true story of Louisiana” so furnished with every

attractive element of romance, so calculated to satisfy every exaction
of literary art, that it seems marvellous it has not been eagerly seized
upon and frequently utilized by dramatists and novelists, is that of a
Louisiana princess—or pretender—whose death in a Parisian
convent in 1771 furnished a fruitful topic of speculation and
conversation in the courts of France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia.
This Louisiana princess (were she no pretender) was the daughter-
in-law of Peter the Great of Russia, wife of the Grand Duke Alexis,
and mother of Peter II. of Russia. The story, as gathered from a few
European authorities and some old French chronicles and histories
of Louisiana, is this.
The Princess Christine, daughter of a German princeling and wife
of the Grand Duke Alexis, is said by Russian official and historical
records to have died in 1716 after a short and most unhappy married
life with a brutal royal profligate, and to have been buried with proper
court honors and attendance. But there is another statement, half-
history, half-romance, which denies that she died at that time, and
asserts that her death and burial were but a carefully planned
deception, to permit her to escape her intolerable life in Russia, and
only concealed her successful flight from St. Petersburg and the
power of the Russian throne. Aided by the famous Countess
Königsmark, the princess, after some delay and frightened hiding in
France, sailed from the port of L’Orient, accompanied by an old
devoted court retainer named Walter. Of course there must always
be a lover to form a true romance, and a young officer named
D’Aubant successfully fills that rôle. He had often seen Christine in
the Russian court, and had rescued her from danger when she was
hunting in the Hartz Mountains, and had cherished for her a deep
though hopeless love. When the news of her death came to the
knowledge of Chevalier D’Aubant, he sadly left the Czar’s service
and went to France. Soon after he chanced to see at the cathedral in
Poitiers a woman who raised her veil, glanced at him with a look of
recognition, and apparently a face like that of his loved Christine.
After long search for the unknown, he found her temporary home,
only to learn that she, with her father Mons. De L’Ecluse (who was of
course Walter), had just sailed for the New World. But the woman of
the house gave him a slip of paper which the fair one had left for him
in case he called and asked concerning her. On it was written this
enigmatical lure:—

I have drunk of the waters of Lethe,

Hope yet remains to me.

Now, he would not have been an ideal court-lover, nor indeed but
a sorry hero, if, after such a message, he had not promply sailed
after the possible Christine. He learned that the vessel which bore
her was to land at Biloxi, Louisiana. He sailed for the same port with
his fortune in his pockets. But on arriving in Louisiana, Walter (or
Mons. De L’Ecluse) had taken the disguising name of Walter Holden,
and Christine posed as his daughter, Augustine Holden; so her
knight-errant thus lost trace of her. Christine-Augustine and her
father settled in the Colonie Roland on the Red River. D’Aubant, with
sixty colonists, founded a settlement but fifty miles away, which he
named the Valley of Christine. Of course in due time the lovers met,
and disguise was impossible and futile, and Augustine confessed her
identity with the Crown Princess. As her husband Alexis had by this
time conveniently died in prison, in Moscow, where he had been tried
and condemned to death (and probably been privately executed),
there was no reason, save the memory of her past exalted position,
why she should not become the wife of an honest planter. They were
married by a Spanish priest, and lived for twenty happy years in the
Valley of Christine.
 But D’Aubant’s health failed, and he sought physicians in Paris.
One day when Christine was walking in the garden of the Tuileries,
with her two daughters, the children of D’Aubant, the German
conversation of the mother attracted the attention of Marshal Saxe,
who was the son of the very Countess Königsmark who had aided
Christine’s escape. The marshal recognized the princess at once, in
spite of the lapse of years, and through his influence with Louis XV.
obtained for D’Aubant a commission as major of troops, and the
office of governor of the Isle of Bourbon. The King also informed the
Empress of Austria, who was a niece of Christine, that her aunt was
alive; and an invitation was sent from the Empress for the D’Aubant
family to become residents of the Austrian Court. They remained,
however, at the Isle of Bourbon until the death of D’Aubant and the
two daughters, when Christine came to Brunswick and was granted
a pension for life by the Empress. Her death in a convent, and her
burial, took place over half a century after her pretended legal
demise.
This is the Christine of romance, of court gossip, of court credulity,
but there is another aspect of her story. Judge Martin has written a
standard history of Louisiana. In it he says:—
Two hundred German settlers of Law’s grant were landed in
the month of March 1721 at Biloxi out of the twelve hundred
who had been recruited. There came among the German
new-comers a female adventurer. She had been attached to
the wardrobe of the wife of the Czarowitz Alexis Petrovitz, the
only son of Peter the Great. She imposed on the credulity of
many persons, particularly on that of an officer of the garrison
of Mobile (called by Bossu, the Chevalier D’Aubant, and by
the King of Prussia, Waldeck), who, having seen the princess
at St. Petersburg imagined he recognized her features in
those of her former servant, and gave credit to the report that
she was the Duke of Wolfenbuttel’s daughter, and the officer
married her.
Grimm and Voltaire in their letters, Levesque in his History, all
unite in pronouncing her an impostor. But you can choose your own
estimate of this creature of high romance; if you elect to deem her a
princess, you find yourself in the goodly company of the King of
France, the Empress of Austria, Marshal Saxe, and a vast number of
other folk of rank and intelligence.
In the year 1771 there was sent to this country from England a
woman convict, who had in her enforced home a most extraordinary
and romantic career of successful fraud.
The first account which I have seen of her was printed in the
Gentleman’s Magazine in 1771, and told simply of her startling
intrusion into the Queen’s apartments in London; but Dr. Doran’s
Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover gives this
account of this interesting bit of Anglo-American romance.
Sarah Wilson, yielding to a strong temptation in the year
1771, filched one or two of the Queen’s jewels, and was
condemned to be executed. It was considered almost a
violation of justice that the thief should be saved from the
halter and be transported instead of hanged. She was sent to
America, where she was allotted as slave, or servant, to a Mr.
Dwale, Bud Creek, Frederick County. Queen Charlotte would
have thought nothing more of her, had her majesty not heard
with some surprise, that her sister Susannah Caroline Matilda
was keeping her court in the plantations. Never was surprise
more genuine than the Queen’s; it was exceeded only by her
hilarity when it was discovered that the Princess Susannah
was simply Sarah Wilson, at large. That somewhat clever girl
having stolen a Queen’s jewels, thought nothing, after
escaping from the penal service to which she was
condemned, of passing herself off as a Queen’s sister. The
Americans were not so acute as their descendants; so in love
were some of them with the greatness they affected to
despise, that they paid royal honors to the clever impostor.
She passed the most joyous of seasons before she was
consigned again to increase of penalty for daring to pretend
relationship with the consort of King George. The story of the
presuming girl, whose escapades, however, were not fully
known in England at that time, served, as far as knowledge of
 them had reached the court, to amuse the gossips who had
assembled about the cradle of the young Elizabeth.
In this account of Dr. Doran’s there are some errors. The real story
of the crime of Sarah Wilson and her subsequent career was this. In
August, 1770, a strange woman found her way by means of a private
staircase to the apartments of Queen Charlotte. She entered a room
where the Queen and the Duchess of Ancaster were sitting, to their
alarm. While she was taking a leisurely survey of the contents of the
room, a page was summoned, who expelled the intruder, but did not
succeed in arresting her. Shortly after, the Queen’s apartments were
broken into by a thief, who stole valuable jewels and a miniature of
the Queen. The thief proved to be a woman named Sarah Wilson,
who had been maid of the Honorable Miss Vernon, and this thief was
asserted to be the inquisitive intruder whose visit had so alarmed the
Queen.
Sarah Wilson was arrested, tried as a felon, and sentenced to
death; but by the exertions and influence of her former mistress the
sentence was commuted to transportation to the American colonies
for a seven years’ term of servitude. This leniency caused
considerable stir in London and some dissatisfaction.
In 1771, after passage in a convict ship, Sarah Wilson was sold to
a Mr. William Duvall, of Bush Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, for
seven years’ servitude. After a short time, in which she apparently
developed her plans of fraud, she escaped from her master, and
went to Virginia and the Carolinas, where she assumed the title of
Princess Susannah Caroline Matilda, and asserted she was the
sister of the Queen of England. She still owned the miniature of the
Queen, and some rich jewels, which gave apparent proof of her
assertion, and it is said some rich clothing. It is indeed mysterious
that a transported convict could retain in her possession, through all
her reverses, the very jewels for whose theft she was punished; yet
the story can scarcely be doubted.
She travelled through the South from plantation to plantation, with
plentiful promises of future English offices and court favors to all who
assisted her progress; and liberal sums of money were placed at her