Until the mid-twentieth century, the Dutch, with their overseas empire, had managed to stay aloof from the machinations of intra-European fighting. However, the beginning of the Cold War found them persuaded by Britain and the US to break with their independent past, and fit into the emerging Western security system. William Mallinson here considers how major post-war developments in Europe affected Dutch foreign policy, traditionally one of abstentionism, and studies the extent of Dutch influence in post-war Western co-operation. Important landmarks, including the Marshall Plan, Brussels Treaty Organisation, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Council of Europe, Schuman Plan and Pleven Plan, so vital to an understanding of contemporary international relations, are all treated incisively. The book sheds light on defence, foreign and economic policy, treating European developments from a previously neglected angle. In so doing, it provides vital insights into the history of European recovery after World War II and into the development of a postwar international order.

What was the relationship between President Franklin D. Roosevelt, architect of America’s rise to global power, and the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, which inspired passion and sacrifice, and shaped the road to world war? While many historians have portrayed the Spanish Civil War as one of Roosevelt’s most isolationist episodes, Dominic Tierney argues that it marked the president’s first attempt to challenge fascist aggression in Europe. Drawing on newly discovered archival documents, Tierney describes the evolution of Roosevelt’s thinking about the Spanish Civil War in relation to America’s broader geopolitical interests, as well as the fierce controversy in the United States over Spanish policy. Between 1936 and 1939, Roosevelt’s perceptions of the Spanish Civil War were transformed. Initially indifferent toward which side won, FDR became an increasingly committed supporter of the leftist government. He believed that German and Italian intervention in Spain was part of a broader program of fascist aggression, and he worried that the Spanish Civil War would inspire fascist revolutions in Latin America. In response, Roosevelt tried to send food to Spain as well as illegal covert aid to the Spanish government, and to mediate a compromise solution to the civil war. However unsuccessful these initiatives proved in the end, they represented an important stage in Roosevelt’s emerging strategy to aid democracy in Europe.

This book is a collection of essays by Swedish and American academics begins by putting into its historical perspective the classic definition of Swedish foreign policy as freedom from alliance in peace, aiming for neutrality in war and it helps to gain new insights on the Sweden's foreign policy.

The essays in this collection cover not only multiple countries, but also multiple aspects of the concept of neutrality: political, economic, cultural and legal. These case studies have led to a re-evaluation of the notion of neutrality, and the role of neutrals, during the First World War, making this collection of great value to all scholars of neutrality, the history of individual neutral countries, and of the war itself.

This book presents the legal and political factors determining international relations, including the processes of integration in all their complexity. The overall structure of the book, together with the composition of its separate chapters, allows for some general assumptions, identifying the main tendencies and placing them in a contemporary social context as well as establishing their relations with the practices of today. The content is a compendium of basic information and data related to the international processes which occur within specific formal, legal and political frames. The book is divided into five parts featuring not only deep historical context but most of all presenting current information and analyses of the last few years. Presented against the background and within the context of the Kingdom of Sweden’s political system and its international environment, the book brings into the foreground issues of particular importance for Sweden’s continuing European integration process and describes its response to the developments in the international situation.

In this thought-provoking, passionately written book, Bernard Mayer—an internationally acclaimed leader in the field—dares practitioners to ask the hard questions about alternative dispute resolution. What’s wrong with conflict resolution? Why aren’t more individuals and organizations using conflict resolution when they have a problem? Why doesn’t the public know more about it? What are the limits of conflict resolution? When does conflict resolution work and when does it not? Offering a committed practitioner’s critique of the profession of mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution, Beyond Neutrality focuses on the current crisis in the field of conflict resolution and offers a pragmatic response.