Jacques Novicow

Jacques Novicow (born Yakov Aleksandrovich Novikov, 1849 to 1912) was a Russian sociologist who wrote in French. Born in Constantinople to a Russian father and a Greek mother, he grew up from 1853 in Odessa, studied law at the University of Odessa, taught there, and served on the city chamber of commerce and provincial council while running the industry he had inherited from his father. He spent part of his life in France and wrote most of his books in French. His Les Luttes entre les sociétés humaines et leurs phases successives (1893) brought him recognition, and other titles include La guerre et ses prétendus bienfaits (1894), Le Péril jaune (1897) and Conscience et volonté sociales (1897). A fierce opponent of social Darwinism and of war, he promoted European federation and defended French as the international language against English. He was a member and vice-president of the Institut international de sociologie. He developed a rational, systematic critique of war well before Norman Angell published The Great Illusion, and one article argues that Angell drew heavily on his work, a claim that caused a controversy among pacifists.