ABSTRACT
The controversial nature and sheer complexity of the interpretations adopted are the very fabric of the "American theorem". After the negative experiences of the interwar years, the "American theorem" became more complex. Between 1940 and 1945 international society lived through the dramatic experience of the singular fusion of history and politics as it sought a new order to give cohesion to an approaching post-war world. A more functional and publicly acceptable intervention was considered, a scheme that was more limited both temporally and spatially, aimed at reconstructing a war-torn world. The new situation signaled the end of a long and fruitful phase of foreign-policy planning in which nearly all the parties to World War II had been engaged on one level or another, the United States in particular. If post-war official documents were compared with those preceding the war, their inherent concepts would probably be marked by similarities and perhaps even close linguistic and textual affinities.
