While the focus of the book is on the interstate use of force post-WWII, this chapter holds a rear mirror and offers a perspective of evolution of restraints that started long before states came into being. It recounts how human societies over the centuries became states free from widespread internal use of armed force and how great powers sought to avoid major armed conflicts through policies of balance of power and multilateral conferences. It describes how they developed common rules by concluding conventions and built institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations to create a rule-based order and mechanisms and methods to prevent the interstate use of force.

History helps us understand how abstract (imagined) constructs providing artificial trust and recognition - needed for large scale cooperation - have evolved over time, greasing and optimizing human cooperation amongst strangers. This first chapter on the history of constitutions in this book looks into the earliest examples of constitutions known to man. Prehistoric constitutions developed for the first time in the city states of Mesopotamia; the Code of Hammurabi being its most famous example. These precursors were always close-knit with religion.