Dr Ruth Henig, CBE, is an academic historian and Labour Party politician. She served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities from 1997 to 2000 and in April 2006 she was one of six people to receive the first Honorary Fellowships of Lancaster University. Specialising in 20th-century international history, she has written three Lancaster Pamphlets: on the origins of the First and Second World Wars, Versailles and After: 1919-1933; on the Treaty of Versailles and international diplomacy in the 1920s; and The League of Nations (1973).

Henig provides greater depth, and much more authority, than the textbooks. She is a sure, and also an entertaining, guide'. -History Review

• Acknowledgements // viiiPreface // ix1. One Vision - Many Approaches // 12. The Drafting of the Covenant, Paris, 1919 // 223. A Faltering Start // 494. Conciliation or Coercion? The Development of the League in the 1920s // 695. The League and Disarmament // 1026. The Manchurian Crisis, 1931-3 // 1277. The Abyssinian Disaster // 1478. The League and the Development of International Society // 1679. The League is Dead: Long Live the United Nations // 186Notes // 192President Wilson's Fourteen Points // 207Founder Members of the League // 211Further Reading // 212Bibliography // 218Index // 227