Sir Norman Angell (whose full name was Ralph Norman Angell Lane) was a British journalist who exerted a great deal of political influence. Toward the end of his life, he granted the collection of his personal papers to the Ball State University Library. A number of these documents are In German, and this thesis is an English translation of them, to make their contents more readily available to those students and faculty members who work with them.Several of the articles included here were written by Norman Angell and published in German newspapers. while it is certain that Sir Norman knew German, this translator has been unable to determine whether he himself or some other translator sot his articles into German. This translator consulted dictionaries when necessary; she also referred to several books and to the Ball State Library micro-cards of the Reichstag minutes for aid in deciphering hand-written names and titles.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Norman Angell, most often remembered as the author of The Great Illusion, (1910), was also a member of the British Parliament from 1929 to 1931 and deserves to be remembered for the overall political career that this brief stay in Commons represents. Although Angell was never a popular political figure--the vast working class public failed to identify with him--he was not without great influence during the period in which the Labour Party went from one of ridicule and political obscurity to one of power and respectability. This study analyzes Angell's career in light of his impact on Labour Party leaders, particularly Edmond Dene Morel and James Ramsey MacDonald.The Angell-MacDonald relationship was a complex and ironic one. Although of similar ideological persuasion, neither assumed a dominant role in their relationship. They were both proud, vain and stubborn men, a fact which precluded their assuming a leader-follower relationship. Angell's relationship with Morel was equally full of irony since Morel, the most vociferous member of Labour's intelligentsia in 1924, epitomized the radical element which Angell desired to eliminate in the Labour Party. The fact that Angell had the confidence of both men and wrote many of Morell's articles criticizing MacDonald's policies in 1924, even though he publicly supported "Ramsey," is a measure of his intangible role in the drama of the First Labour Government.Angell's involvement in the personal lives as well as the political careers of these two antagonists predated the First World War. This is significant for several reasons. For one, Angell was instrumental in bringing these strange bedfellows together in 1914 through their co-founding of the Union of Democratic Control. Secondly, it contradicts the current notion that Angell was never greatly interested in politics. Thirdly, it shows that Angell was never completely satisfied with the nonpolitical peace movement which his Great Illusion fostered.Historians have so completely equated "Norman Angellism" with Ralph Norman Angell Lane that this study takes on an added dimension. It offers a perspective from which to view Angell if any future biography is to do justice to the man. Contrary to current thinking Angell was a politician; he eagerly sought a political identity and wanted political power. This study also shows that Angell, although often a man of great vision, should not be remembered as a prophet of the contemporary experience, but rather, as a spokesman for the nineteenth century. Angell was and even saw himself more as a product of the nineteenth century British liberal tradition than as a twentieth century man. Although he held twentieth century economic views, he actually mirrored the social, political, and cultural philosophy of the nineteenth century English middle class. He never altered his greater conception of English society even in the face of new economic and political realities.The tragedy of Angell's being remembered as the author of The Great Illusion is therefore twofold. It not only hides the historical significance of his political career but reflects adversely on the real thrust of his life. Internationalism and pacifism, the two "isms" most often referred to in conjunction with his seminal work, mask his most basic instincts. Norman Angell might have been an internationalist and a pacifist, but, Ralph Lane was a Nationalist and a British patriot of the first rank.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

This study examines the expressed thoughts, writings, objectives, and actions of peace advocate Norman Angell in the critical years of the First World War and attempts to ascertain if and how his objectives and methods of operation changed. As a basis for comparison, Angell's earlier life is briefly examined. Because Angell first achieved prominence with the publication and success of his book, The Great Illusion, activities growing out of that success, including the Norman Angell movement, also are examined.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

This doctoral dissertation focuses on the significant activities of Sir Norman Angell during the years 1935 through 1940. During this period, Angell consistently attacked Britain's policy of appeasement toward the fascist powers. Drawing upon the Angell Papers housed at Bail State University, the study attempts to chronicle the efforts of Angell to persuade both the British Government and public to-reject appeasement and support a policy which advocated resisting aggression conducted by the fascist powers.As a significant advocate of the League of Nations and collective security, Angell was an early and extremely perceptive critic of fascism. He argued for stern resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1931, and warned the British public of the potential threat to peace emanating from the rise of fascism in Germany. When Mussolini moved to aggrandize Italy by conquering powerless Abyssinia, Angell urged the British Government to support League of Nations sanctions directed against Italy. Using his skills as a lecturer and writer, Angell cautioned that failure to resist Italian aggression in Abyssinia would mortally wound the League of Nations and cripple the concept of collective security.As Angell continued to analyze the development of British appeasement and the demise of collective security, he began to perceive a pattern which showed that failure to resist aggression in the past had led directly to further aggression. Dismayed by the obvious impotence of the League of Nations in its feeble responses to the Italo-Abyssinian War, the Rhineland Crisis, and the Spanish Civil War, Angell moved inexorably toward adherence to a traditional balance-of-power concept. Although membership was theoretically open to the fascist powers, Angell envisioned an anti-fascist alliance of Britain, France and the Soviet Union. In Angell's opinion, this alliance would serve as the primary instrument for defense of the British Empire. Defense of the British Empire was important, according to Angell, because it actually served as an embryonic League of Nations. To those Conservative critics who opposed an alliance with the Soviet Union, Angell responded with the prophetic warning that Britain's rejection of the Soviet Union might lead to an alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.As Angell began to manifest an increasing concern for the defense of the British Empire, he frequently associated with other individuals who held the same concern. Although ostensibly a Labourite, Angell was willing to cooperate with individuals of diverse political persuasions in order to reverse the British policy of appeasement. Indeed, he actively participated in an organization which served as a platform for Winston Churchill's attack on appeasement. In addition, in spite of opposition from the leadership of the Labour Party, Angell flirted with the possibility of actually becoming a Popular Front candidate for Parliament. After the Munich appeasement and the start of World War II, Angell was firmly convinced that his efforts to oppose appeasement had been justified.It is not possible to determine conclusively the impact of Angell's efforts on the thinking of the British Government and public. Yet, it must be assumed that the sheer volume of Angell's writings, lectures and organizational activity must have contributed to the popularly held belief that appeasement had encouraged further aggressive demands by the Axis powers which precipitated World War II.

This study is the latest in a series done at Ball State Univeristy on the Angell Papers, the entire collection of personal papers and other materials which Sir Norman Angell presented to the school in 1961. The present study focuses on Angell's activities from July 1940 through December 1945 when Angell was in the United States--unofficially representing the British government--to promote Anglo-American friendship and cooperation.When war broke out in 1939, the British government, principally the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Information, immediately recognized the need to promote pro-British sentiments in the United States. But they also recognized the desirability of keeping a "low profile" in deference to American sensitivities and suspicions about the alleged role of British propaganda in the United States entry into World War I. Angell, and other private British citizens with established contacts and reputations in the United States, were thus chosen to conduct a campaign of unofficial propaganda in America. As a tireless lecturer and writer, Angell used every means at his disposal to communicate his basic message: Britain's historic role in preserving United States security.Initially, that message consisted of an unrelenting assault on the isolationist/non-interventionist position. After Pearl Harbor, it increasingly focused on cementing for the postwar era the level of war-enforced Anglo-American cooperation by interpreting to Americans those features of English life most likely to be sources of misunderstandings and resentments: feudal remnants in the political and social structures, the Empire, and Labourite Socialism. Finally, as the war moved into its latter phases, Angell increasingly recognized those of the political Left as constituting a greater threat to postwar Anglo-American cooperation--which he regarded as the sine qua non of an effective collective security system and future peace--than did those of the nationalistisolationist Right. He became especially concerned about the Left's desire to promote socio-economic revolutionary change in the midst of war, even at the expense of maintaining essential wartime unity or postwar stability. He was equally concerned about the Left's attitude toward the USSR, fearing the reappearance of an appeasement policy which would as surely result in still another war as that of the 1930s had.The nature of historical evidence does not permit a conclusive evaluation of Angell's impact on Americans' thinking. But it might be justly said that, operating from a private station, Angell did as much as any one man could to advance the cause of international understanding and peace.