Le rameau et le glaive: Les militants français pour la Société des Nations

The idea of lasting peace based on law represented the great hope of a twentieth century traumatized by two world wars. The first incarnation of this ideal, the League of Nations (1919–46), aroused an advocacy movement which conveyed the "Spirit of Geneva" to the French public. In contrast to "sentimental pacificism," or naiveté often associated with it, this book shows that activists for the League of Nations defended a new conception of international relations aimed at limiting, if not abolishing, violence between sovereign states through legal procedures. The history of this French activism remains essential to comprehending a political struggle whose successes and failures fuel contemporary reflections on the organization of the international community: multilateralism, international cooperation, collective security, disarmament, international justice, universalism–regionalism, and more, and from the United Nations to the European Union.