It is fitting that Carr's The Twenty Years' Crisis should be the point of departure for the first Special Issue of the Review of International Studies. One of the earliest appraisals of Carr's contribution to international relations appeared in the very first issue of the journal of the British International Studies Association.1 More recently, by publishing the annual E.H.Carr memorial lecture, the Review has been partly responsible for the Carr revival that has gathered momentum.2 Although these lectures have rarely had Carr's general work or The Twenty Years' Crisis as their central theme, they have consistently shown how Carr's thought can be applied to the various sub-fields of international studies. In this first Special Issue we have likewise used Carr's work as the point of departure in this survey of both subject and subject-matter spanning the 80 years since the subject was placed in an academic setting.