Since the end of the Second World War, we have moved from an international system in which war was legal, and accepted as the ultimate arbiter of disputes between nations, to one in which it was not. Nations that wage aggressive war have become outcasts and have almost always had to give up their territorial gains. How did this epochal transformation come about?
This remarkable book, which combines political, legal, and intellectual history, traces the origins and course of one of the great shifts in the modern world.