Edited by Martin Grandjean and Daniel Laqua, this book brings together the work of 17 scholars and highlights the breadth of the League of Nations’ work in the field of intellectual cooperation, detailing a range of transnational connections across a variety of cultural fields. Building a new global order after the First World War required not only political and economic reconstruction, but also the coordination of scientific and cultural relations on an international scale. To this end, the League of Nations established first a committee and then a Paris-based institute dedicated to “intellectual cooperation”. Operative from1922 and 1926 respectively, these bodies aimed to develop a collaborative dynamic around issues as diverse as professor and student exchanges, scientific cooperation, the discussion of educational means for peace, as well as artistic and literary relations. Attracting some of the era’s most eminent intellectuals, this initiative did not lead to the creation of a “League of Minds”, as some of the architects of the League of Nations had so eagerly hoped, but it played a key role in the development of cultural diplomacy in the interwar period. When citing the publication, please use the following language: Martin Grandjean and Daniel Laqua, eds. Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations: Shaping Cultural and Political Relations. Vol. 5. UN Historical Series. Geneva: United Nations, 2025.

This book provides a transcription of the reports written by undercover agent Paul Kinsie for the League of Nations Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children in the mid-1920s. Between 1924 and 1926, a team travelled to more than a hundred cities in Europe, the Americas and the Mediterranean area to interview individuals involved in the regulation, repression, medical control, organization and practice of the sex trade. American undercover agents were included on the team to infiltrate the so-called ‘underworld’ and obtain ‘facts’ about the traffic. Among these, Kinsie was the most prolific. He visited more than forty cities and produced hundreds of reports in which his contacts with prostitutes, brothel owners, madams, pimps and procurers are described in detail. For a proper contextualization of the reports, scholars from around the world were asked to provide short introductions to the situation with regard to prostitution in each city that was visited. The book offers a unique source of information which is of great ethnographic value for people interested in the history of human trafficking and prostitution.