Suchergebnisse

The existence of regional arrangements rests on two assumptions: First, the recognition that world unity, based on a common way of life and common values, is still very distant; and second, the increasingly inescapable conviction that, in our time, the great majority of national states are political and economic units illequipped to develop fully and even survive on solely national bases. Politically, most states have lost ground in a world which has had its centers of power radically diminished in the course of a generation. Economically, they are units too small to develop fully their natural resources and overcome their poverty unless they work together. The modern world needs to create regional units as a bridge between the isolated national state and a sufficiently integrated world collectivity of the future.

The development of regional organizations and collective defense arrangements of a regional nature has been one of the principal features of international relations since 1945. The literature on the subject has already become voluminous. This bibliography is designed to provide a key to some of the principal writings on the subject found in the more generally available periodicals and other sources in the English and French languages. An effort has been made to index the basic documents establishing the different regional arrangements together with materials giving reliable summaries of what has been done in each area and throwing light on organizational and political issues.