The rediscovery of the lost or the suppressed is a recurring theme in literature, mythology, and of course history: the Renaissance itself is a defining example. Much of Western popular fiction since World War II-from The Lord of the Rings to The Chronicles of Narnia to Star Wars-is based on such rediscovery. Our conclusion to this volume is that revisiting the practice of the United Nations at war provides a startling example of the phenomenon of forgotten historical lessons. In 1945, one London synagogue marked the end of World War II

with a service celebrating “The Victory in Arms of the United Nations,” and comparable labeling was also used in Christian services. Seven decades later, this packaging seems so odd as to require fact checking.1 Yet this United Nations had not only defeated fascism but had also been building multilateral civilian organizations since 1942. As such, international cooperation for economic and social policies was at the core of Allied national security strategy for the postwar world; the current equivalents of “human security” or “human development” are, in contrast, found on the periphery. The legacy of Allied efforts from 1942 to 1945 merits careful scrutiny as the planet collectively continues to fumble with problem solving in the anarchical world of the twenty-first century. Rather than try to spell out separate insights from individual chap-

ters, we instead explore the implications arising across the essays about the wartime origins of United Nations and the future of the world

organization. Six stand out with implications with a bearing on practice or scholarship: the decision to work multilaterally; the broad substantive and geographic resonance of multilateralism; the relevance of historical inquiry to understanding the contemporary globalizing world; further research for the lines of inquiry sketched here; the implications for theoretical explorations of international affairs; and the underappreciated role of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in global governance.