The Politics of World Federation
Joseph Preston Baratta
Praeger
Volume I traces the influence of a generation of internationalists on policy, particularly on Winston Churchill's proposal of Anglo-French union of June 16, 1940, deliberations in the U.S. State Department on the shape of a postwar international security organization until October 1943, the Baruch plan for the international control of atomic energy in l946, and early efforts at UN reform. Volume 2 recounts the history and practical politics of creating a world in which the rule of law maintains the peace in the same way as in well-organized free national states. The coming of the Cold War by 1947 is the principal explanation for the immediate failure of the world federalists. The historic opportunity for so fundamental an innovation in international relations as the establishment of even a limited world federation had passed, but for the next few years there was a vigorous and deep political thinking about the continued prospect of war. Work toward this goal continued, and eventually the United World Federalists built up enough of a popular movement to pass resolutions favoring U.S. participation in 22 states.