Brian Urquhart's remarkable career in the United Nations began
when the UN was founded in 1945 and ended in 1986 after a
twelve-year tenure as Under Secretary-General for Special Political
Affairs--the equivalent of commander of UN peacekeeping operations.
Among the many revolutions he observed during that period was the
process of decolonization, which completely changed the
geopolitical map of the world and the conditions under which
governments seek to assure world peace. In Decolonization and World
Peace, he charts the rapid progress of decolonization in Africa,
the Middle East, and other areas of the Third World and describes
some of its repercussions.
One of the most serious repercussions has been the chain of
regional conflicts arising from the creation of postcolonial power
vacuums in various parts of the world. Attributing the difficulty
in resolving many of these conflicts--including the Palestine
conflict and the Iran-Iraq War--to the climate of Cold War that
paralyzed UN authority from the 1960s through the early 1980s,
Urquhart is encouraged by what he calls a "new summer of
international relations" brought on by the warming of relations
between the US and the USSR.
The four chapters of Decolonization and World Peace are based on
the Tom Slick World Peace lectures that Urquhart delivered at the
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs of the University of
Texas at Austin in 1988. The appendices offer further insights into
the peacekeeping potential of the UN. Included are his remarks at
the Nobel Prize Banquet in Norway, on the occasion of the award of
the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize to UN peacekeeping forces.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!