The Foundations of Modern Arms Control: An International History, 1815-1968

This book is an international history of the foundation of modern arms control, highlighting the fact that the instrument is varied, resilient, successful, and enduring.

The narrative begins after the Napoleonic wars when newly arisen peace movements focused on arbitration as a path to “ending the war system.” It moves on to the international community’s embrace of “total and complete disarmament” and then to its acceptance of more limited measures by 1968, including the agreements that rema...