Chapter 1 The best hope of mankind? A brief history of the UN We usually think of international organizations as a twentieth-century phenomenon that started with the establishment of the League of Nations in 1919. This is, for the most part, true. However, in the late nineteenth century nations had . . . Read more

Chapter 4 Peacekeeping to peacebuilding “Certainly the idea of an international police force effective against a big disturber of the peace seems today unrealizable to the point of absurdity.” It was an unexpected line from Lester B. Pearson, delivered as part of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in December . . . Read more

Chapter 2 An impossible hybrid: the structure of the United Nations In an interview with Time magazine in the summer of 1955, Dag Hammarskjöld expressed his frustration over the UN’s public image. He worried, in particular, that many people considered the organization—at the time barely ten years old—as a bureaucratic . . . Read more

Chapter 3 Facing wars, confronting threats: the UN Security Council in action If the purpose of the UN was to save mankind from the destruction that had overshadowed the history of the first half of the twentieth century, measuring its success depends on one’s perspective. On the one hand, it . . . Read more