ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book begins with war and then a major and prolonged stock exchange crash, and a general economic crisis. In the Great Depression, parliamentarism, democratic politics, and market economics looked old-fashioned and discredited. In 1945 the fascist alternative to market society and democracy was completely defeated. It had argued its cause as that of historical necessity and of the right of the stronger. The fundamental development that shaped the end of the century had actually been long developing: an international society, in which international law began to shape the interactions of states, and in which individual human rights played an increasingly important role. History and historical writing can never be definitive, and of course this is especially true in the case of contemporary history.
