ABSTRACT
In the world which emerged fresh from the battlefields of the 20th century 30-years war, that presumption was authoritatively elevated to the rank of the least questionable, indeed unassailable principle of the new world order. The United Nations, the organization brought into being with a briefing to police that order, was charged with the protection of sovereign states against aggression and with the guardian-ship of their indivisible sovereignty. Territoriality could be a nightmare but it was also the promise of a shelter, a warrant of security, and altogether a better deal for every human in a world that had already made of the territoriality of powers, identities and rights the supreme principle of the world order. A historian of ideas rather than a sociologist, Hirschman focused on the marked shift in thought, rather than on the more subterranean overhaul of the socio-political configuration which undersigned the now rejected consensus.
