Book excerpt: This book consists of interviews with five distinguished international lawyers from the UK, USA, Uruguay and France, conducted by the editor, Antonio Cassese, between 1993 and 1995. Each interview is preceded by a brief 'intellectual portrait' of the interviewee. In his general introduction Cassese stresses that the interviews, all based on the same questionnaire, were intended to bring out not only the main ideas associated with each scholar in the fields of international law and international relations, but also his intellectual and philosophical background, his general outlook and his views of the prospects for the evolution of the international community. In his final essay, Cassese brings together the main threads of the interviews and points to the parallels and divergences appearing from them. This book offers a unique and important insight into the legal minds and outlook of a select group of prominent scholars of international law and legal institutions during the last years of the twentieth century.