A review by dustyduck
Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea, 1815 to the Present by Mark Mazower

4.0

A concise overview of international politics as operant through intergovernmental institutions. Those interested in the 20th century should also see his 2008 work No Enchanted Palace, which is far more skeptical of the benign image that organizations like the League of Nations/United Nations often present themselves as having. Here, he tempers the role of international 'governing' institutions with more economic and financial ones like the Bretton Woods architecture. The US inevitably is the counterweight to such global processes, but it is hard to envisage a history of 20th century internationalism written otherwise.