paris 1919 six months that changed the world

She refutes received ideas about the path from Versailles to World War II and debunks the widely accepted notion that reparations imposed on the Germans were in large part responsible for the Second World War.Ī landmark work of narrative history, Paris 1919 is the first full-scale treatment of the Peace Conference in more than twenty-five years. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made the scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later.

The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally above all they failed to prevent another war. They struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China, and dismissed the Arabs. This book brings to life the personalities, ideals, and prejudices of the men who shaped the settlement. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam.įor six months, Paris was effectively the center of the world as the peacemakers carved up bankrupt empires and created new countries. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. David Lloyd George, the gregarious and wily British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and wildly idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the larger-than-life characters who fill the pages of this extraordinary book. Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Urn:oclc:843022249 Scandate 20110715145301 Scanner January and July 1919, after 'the war to end all wars,' men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. OL4988913W Page-progression lr Page_number_confidence 92.29 Pages 632 Ppi 500 Related-external-id urn:isbn:0307432963 Urn:lcp:paris1919sixmont00macm:epub:66dc37ae-0595-4de8-8cb3-40202d32bb38 Extramarc MIT Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier paris1919sixmont00macm Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6446kt04 Isbn 0375508260 Lccn 2002023707 Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_module_version 0.0.5 Ocr_parameters -l eng Openlibrary O元560201M Openlibrary_edition Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 17:34:05 Boxid IA1398805 Boxid_2 CH101301 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Containerid_2 X0001 Donorīostonpubliclibrary Edition 1st US edition, reprint External-identifier

Paris 1919 six months that changed the world