world politics-or international relations-as a separate discipline was developed primarily by European scholars in American universities after world war II . Before that time, it was the province of historians, international lawyers, and philosophers. war and conflict were then still regarded as departures from normal peaceful relations. world war I, after all, had been the war to end all wars. scholars during the interwar period, therefore, colletive security, and even world government. the rise of Nazi and fascist totalitarianism, however, and the death of forty million people during world war II challenged the basic assumptions of the idealists. their hopes and aspirations lay shattered under the debris of Auschwitz and Hiroshima.