His aim was, Bew says, “to solve the conundrum of achieving liberal enlightened goals in a world that did not follow liberal enlightened rules.” He proposed Realpolitik as an alternative to the failed Idealpolitik. He thought 1848 had failed because the revolutionaries were naive and lacked a clear understanding of power. Von Rochau was a liberal and his work was not initially directed at foreign policy but at domestic politics, in an attempt to find a way of combining the emerging nationalism with liberalism rather than authoritarianism. Bew traces it back to Ludwig August von Rochau’s The Foundations of Realpolitik, the first volume of which was published in 1853 in the aftermath of the European revolutions of 1848. Realpolitik, as a system of politics based on realism and interests rather than moral or ideological considerations, is not, in fact, as old as history. The term “Realpolitik” is endlessly bandied around in foreign policy debates, usually as an insult or synonym for Machiavellianism, but John Bew’s scholarly new book, Realpolitik: A History, reminds us that we don’t really know what it means.

Should we be dealing with the Saudis? President Barack Obama welcomes King Salman bin Abdelaziz Al Saud to the White House in 2015 ©Rex Shutterstock Realpolitik: A history by John Bew, Oxford University Press, £14.99

Realpolitik by John Bew