In recent years the United Nations has become more active in - and more generally respected for - its peacekeeping efforts than at any other period in its 50-year history. During the same period, the United States has been engaged in a debate about the place of the UN in the conduct of its foreign policy. This book tells a story and also provides a historical perspective on the controversy. Historians Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley explain how the idea of the United Nations was conceived, debated and revised, first within the US government and then by negotiation with its major allies in World War II. The experience of the war generated increasing support for the new organization throughout American society and the UN Charter was finally endorsed by the community of nations in 1945. The story largely belongs to President Franklin Roosevelt, who was determined to form an organization that would break the cycle of ever more destructive wars (in contrast to the failed League of Nations), and who therefore assigned collective responsibility for keeping the peace to the five leading UN powers - the major wartime allies. Hoopes and Brinkley focus on Roosevelt but also present portraits of others who played significant roles in bringing the UN into being: these include Cordell Hull, Sumner Welles, Dean Acheson, Harry Hopkins, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, William Fulbright and Walter Lippmann. In an epilogue, the authors discuss the checkered history of the United Nations and considers its future prospects.