The Law of Nations: An Introduction to the International Law of Peace

One has to spend a year of law school boning up on International Law to really appreciate how rare the good publicists are in the field. Brierly, despite writing his original essay in the 1920's, remains, along with Fenwick and a few others, one of the very few must-reads. This short volume is concise, generally easy to follow, and usually does a decent job of segregating attempts to teach the reader from attempts to convince him. Nowhere else in this notoriously sprawling and chaotic field will you find such an accessible primer on the breadth, scope and outline of that eternally slouching beast that is public international law. If you are researching this beast and have no idea where to begin, try reading this first.