Who among the following was the first thinker to use the term 'superpower'?

Who among the following was the first thinker to use the term 'superpower'? Correct Answer William Fox

A superpower is a country that cannot be overlooked on the international stage and without which no global crisis can be solved.

Key Points

  • William Thornton Rickert Fox was an American foreign policy professor and international relations theoretician at Columbia University.
  • In his book, The Super-Powers: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union (1944), he coined the term superpower.
  • According to him, three states were superpowers at the time: the United States, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire.
  • Their Responsibility for Peace was to establish a new type of power capable of occupying the greatest status in the world. 
  • He predicted the future of Soviet-American relations if the two nations did not cooperate but he also attempted to investigate what options leaders could have to avoid that outcome.

Thus, William Fox was the first thinker to use the term 'superpower'. 

Additional Information

  •  Robert Cox: 
    • Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory (1981)
    • ​Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method (1983)
    • Production, Power and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History (1987)
    •  
  • E.H. Carr :
    • The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (1939)
    •  What Is History? (1961). 
  • ​Hans J. Morgenthau
    • ​Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (1948)

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