Utopy and Conquest: Conceptual Shifts

Richard Tuck's book on "The right of war and peace" (1999) has arguably opened the way for the reconceptualization of the history of political thought. In the last ten years international relations have become a prominent part of political thought and we have to consider the question of "Rethinking the foundations of modern international thought" (David Armitage, 2013). Against this background utopianism stands out as a particularly challenging concept. Inspired by Carr's distinction between realism and utopianism, recent studies in international thought use "utopia" as a conceptual tool to be applied to perpetual peace projects. However, early modern utopian literature has been blamed for its colonialist implications. My paper will focus on the utopian literature in the 17th and 18th centuries and will argue that the Grotian language of just war and conquest played a crucial role in shaping some early modern utopian texts.