Abstract
The United Nations, like the League, emerged out of political turmoil. Nations had again clashed dreadfully in war, states were again thrown into confusion, and again the dead were numbered in millions. The League had failed to keep the peace, but the hunger remained for an international body able to settle disputes between states without resort to military force. The conflagration of the Second World War, far from discouraging the development of international organisations, had vitally stimulated the efforts to create a successor to the League. The survivors again sought institutions that would prevent such wanton human carnage and such massive waste of treasure. The great army of 50 million dead was the silent midwife of the United Nations.
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Notes
See Clive Ponting, 1940: Myth and Reality (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990) ch. 10.
US Department of State, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939–1945, Department of State Publication 3580 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949).
T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of Peace (London: Frewin, 1967) p. 25.
J. K. Horsefield et al., The International Monetary Fund, 1945–1965: Twenty Years of International Monetary Co-operation, vol. III (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1965).
Anjali V Patii, The UN Veto in World Affairs, 1946–1990: A Complete Record and Case Histories of the Security Council’s Veto (Sarasota, Fl: UNIFO/Mansell, 1992).
Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography (London: Collins, 1987) p. 762.
Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1974) p. 199.
Ernst B. Haas, The Web of Interdependence: The United States and International Organisations (New Jersey, 1970) p. 3.
Trygve Lie, In the Cause of Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1954) p. 55.
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© 1994 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1994). Genesis. In: The United Nations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23389-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23389-2_2
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