"Martha Finnemore uses one type of force, military intervention, as a window onto the shifting character of international society. She examines the changes, over the past four hundred years, in why countries intervene militarily as well as in how they have intervened." "Finnemore looks at three types of intervention: collecting debts, addressing humanitarian crises, and acting against states perceived as threats to international peace. In all three, she finds that intervention that is now considered obvious was vigorously contested or even rejected by people in earlier periods for well-articulated and logical reasons. As broad historical perspective allows her to explicate long-term trends: the steady erosion of force's normative value in international politics, the growing influence of equality norms in many aspects of global political life, and the increasing importance of law in intervention practices."--Jacket.