Review by Choice Review
Phillips and Axelrod, coauthors of several popular and quasi-scholarly works, have collaborated to produce this compendium providing historical analysis of selected major treaties, ancient times to the present, a complement to Axelrod's American Treaties and Alliances (2000). An overview essay providing historical perspective accompanies each section of the book, which is arranged both chronologically and geographically. Each of the entries, which include treaties, international agreements and understandings, and other diplomatic documents, supplies a concise summary, followed by a discussion of its background, review of its principal terms (reproducing salient parts or the full text), and assessment of its significance. This noteworthy, handsomely packaged contribution to the literature illuminates many of the most critical treaties and alliances throughout world history. It distinguishes itself from works focusing on the modern world--e.g., The Major International Treaties of the Twentieth Century, ed. by J.A.S. Grenville and Bernard Wasserstein (2000), and Treaties and Alliances of the World, ed. by N.J. Rengger (6th ed., 1995). Recommended for academic libraries supporting international relations and international law curricula. D. Ettinger George Washington University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Arthur Ponsonby's classic Wars and Treaties, 1815-1914 (1918) was updated by Erik Goldstein's Wars and Peace Treatie: 1816-1991 (1992), and both did admirable jobs of covering many formal treaties through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Now comes Facts On File's compilation of information about the times and events that resulted in significant attempts to formalize political tolerance from 3100 B.C. to 1997. The authors do not claim comprehensiveness and did not try to produce a work that will be updated every few years. They have selected "most major" treaties and representative types of agreements that illustrate trends in political negotiations to provide a work "of enduring value" to students. As shown in the table of contents, the set combines a chronological and a conceptual arrangement so that readers can analyze agreements, understandings, and treaties that evolved during and affected, for example, "The Birth of Diplomacy" in the seventeenth century or the period of the cold war. An alphabetical list of treaties and cross-references provide additional points of access. Other features include a chronological list of treaties near the end of volume 2, along with a substantial bibliography to suggest further readings. Each chapter begins with an introduction that discusses international relationships during the period under review. Each treaty entry provides a summary, a history of events leading to the document's creation, terms of the treaty, and its significant consequences. All or parts of a document are reproduced when warranted. The index in volume 2 denotes texts of documents in bold type. A welcome feature is the splitting of the material into two volumes, resulting in items that are comfortable to handle and likely to survive shelving and reshelving better than overly bulky tomes. Someone interested in any of these documents individually can find the information elsewhere. Anyone who wants to put these documents in perspective will find this set a wonderful resource. And any library serving history researchers that lacks either of the titles mentioned in the first paragraph definitely needs this source. American Treaties and Alliances [RBB N 1 00], also by Axelrod, uses a similar approach but focuses on more than 700 agreements to which the U.S. is a signatory.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
