The Legacies of the League of Nations

Annie Calloway, Literacy, Olde Providence Elementary School

Final Unit (pdf)  Implementing Teaching Standards (pdf)

History is a narrative of the past, yet often this narrative is influenced by contemporary issues. The purpose of this unit is to propose a different chronicle, that is one situated in the discourses of the inter-war years, (1918-1938) as European countries found traditional boundaries challenged by an emerging globalism.

The League of Nations (LoN) was a reaction to the suffering and waste of the First World War. Despite a limited budget, it was a massive and complicated system that became the basis for modern practices including international law, intellectual cooperation, global health initiatives, and freedom of transport. The covenant of the LoN was a part of the Treaty of Versailles and embedded the term collective security in the articles implying that peaceful states would combine their efforts to neutralize aggression. This covenant became the mechanisms for international obligations held in common by the participants. Discussion, arbitration, economic sanctions, and supplies of military units to stop the outbreak of war are among the more well researched legacies of the LoN. The following examinations of historical background, nationalism, border disputes, the balances of power, and international humanitarian actions are representational of much of the existing work.