Knowledge in Exile

The unofficial participation of the United States in the technical work of the League of Nations points to a more international origin of many concepts that still guide global relations today. American internationalism relied on external inputs it took from transnational discussions and debates. It also sustained something larger beyond the League—the creation and maintenance of liberal international life. The interest of Americans and others internationally in the organization and its activities was not a narrow expression of hope for the League itself but a consequence of larger concerns about the modern world. For answers to pressing global problems many in the United States and elsewhere turned to the organizations in Geneva as well as the components of liberal international society--an interlocking network of governments, bureaucracies, and ministries, as well as universities, foundations, civic organizations, advocacy groups, and other nongovernmental organizations along with committed individuals--that sustained them. Collectively, they offered mechanisms to assist in larger endeavors to build an understanding of a complicated and interconnected globe. The League was thus a means to an end, not the end in itself. That end was world order based on liberal principles.