Product Review

In this book, Professor Holsti approaches the study of the origins of war and the foundations of peace from a new perspective. He asks three interrelated questions. Which issues generate conflict? How have attitudes toward war changed? And, what attempts have been made historically to create international institutions and orders that can manage, control or prevent international conflicts? Starting with the peace treaties of Munster and Osnabruck of 1648, Kalevi Holsti examines 177 international wars. Through these, he identifies the variety of conflict-producing issues and how they, as well as the attitudes of policy makers to the use of force, have changed over the past 350 years. He demonstrates how the new orders established by the great peace-making efforts of 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919 and 1945 attempted to solve the issues of the past, yet few successfully anticipated those of the future. Indeed, some created the basis of new conflicts.