Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro present The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World

5:00 p.m. Reception  |  6:00 p.m. Presentation  |  7:00 p.m. Book Signing

On a hot summer afternoon in 1928, the leaders of the world assembled in Paris to outlaw war. Within the year, the treaty signed that day, known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, had been ratified by nearly every nation in the world. War, for the first time in history, had become illegal the world over. But the promise of that summer day was fleeting. Within a decade of its signing, each nation that had gathered in Paris to renounce war was at war. And in the century that followed, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was dismissed as an act of folly and an unmistakable failure. This book argues that that understanding is inaccurate, and that the Kellogg-Briand Pact ushered in a sustained march toward peace that lasts to this day.

The Internationalists examines with renewed appreciation an international system that has outlawed wars of aggression and brought unprecedented stability to the world map. Accessible and gripping, this book will change the way we view the history of the twentieth century—and how we must work together to protect the global order the internationalists fought to make possible.