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The journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism was founded in 1995 and has since offered policy-relevant and theoretically advanced articles aimed at both academic and practitioner audiences. This collection presents some of the most significant pieces published in the journal, addressing topics ranging from human rights and peacekeeping to trade and development – often examining the evolution of the institutional arrangements themselves. Authors include senior UN officials, prominent scholars, and other careful students of international organization. By presenting these twenty-five articles – one from each year since the journal's founding – in one volume (with an Introduction by by the two editors Kurt Mills and Kendall Stiles) we hope that the reader will be able to better appreciate the evolution of both global institutions and our thinking about them. Contributors include: Kurt Mills, Kendall Stiles, James N. Rosenau, Inis L. Claude, Jr., David Held, Kofi Annan, Ngaire Woods, Craig Warkentin, Karen Mingst, John Gerard Ruggie, Peter M. Haas, Mats Berdal, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Rosemary Foot, Michele M. Betsill, Harriet Bulkeley, Michael Barnett, Hunjoon Kim, Madalene O'Donnell, Laura Sitea, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Joyeeta Gupta, Daniel Petry, Roger A. Coate, Andrea Birdsall, Gilles Carbonnier, Fritz Brugger, Jana Krause, Paul D. Williams, Alex J. Bellamy, John Karlsrud, Kathryn Sikkink, Mateja Peter, Gregory T. Chin, Matthew D. Stephen, Kjølv Egeland, Caroline Fehl, and Johannes Thimm.

Davies'review explores the history of transnational voluntary associations, commencing with general patterns before proceeding to cover the history of different sectors in turn, including humanitarianism, science, education, environment, feminism, race, health, human rights, labour, business, standards, professions, culture, peace, religion, and youth. Coverage extends from the late eighteenth century through to the early twenty-first century and spans histories of particular organizations and of particular campaigns in addition to the evolution of broader transnational social movements. Contrasting perspectives on historical evolution are considered, including both linear and cyclical interpretations. The factors underpinning historical changes are explored, including economic, environmental, political, scientific and social developments. Insights are drawn not only from a transnational historical perspective, but also the many other disciplines that shed light on the subject, such as world sociology. The review also incorporates perspectives from international relations, development studies, peace studies, voluntary sector studies, and women's studies. It argues that the historical evolution of transnational voluntary associations is longer, less Western in origin and more cyclical than traditionally assumed.

This work advances the proposition that traditional ‘top down'politics is being challenged by grass-roots, civil society based ‘bottom up'politics in that most sensitive areas, the national security/arms control dichotomy. The book uses the example of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), that has succeeded in reversing or altering the national policies on landmines in over 130 countries globally. The book cites the efforts of what the author calls ‘moral entrepreneurs', that is people who have adopted the risk-taking characteristics of business and social leaders to bring this state of affairs about. As a new polity that challenges old assumptions about the state's preserve in matters of national security and moral force, the ICBL has set the benchmark for a fresh, twenty-first century paradigm in arms control.