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Title: Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan ISBN: 0-375-50826-0 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 29 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 (54 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Comprehensive Study of Seminal Event of 20th Century
Comment: This excellent book provides an in depth review and analysis of the Versailles conference, a seminal event of the 20th Century that redrew the maps of both Europe and of the Third World of its colonies and which created the conditions, or at least provided the backdrop for, events leading to the Second World War 2O years later.
Ms. MacMillan, a descendant of one the key players in this event, Lloyd George, along with other scholars and academics who publish their manuscripts through large commercial publishing houses, deserve a little more attention to their work from the anonymous editorial assistants who write the dust jackets of their books and who often, as in this case, obviously have not read the volume in question or have any great knowledge of its subject matter. Thus we are confronted on the inside flap of this book with the ridiculous assertion that Israel was created by the Versailles conference in 1919 which, as anyone who has ever even taken a high school history course knows, was formed in 1947 after a bitter struggle with both the British and the Arabs. True, Lord Balfour did make his declaration of intent in 1917, but that had nothing to do with the Versailles conference and did not establish any state. Nowhere does the author ever make such an ignorant statement or claim, the term Israel not appearing in the index. To spare its authors and the educated public that reads non-fiction books of this type from embarrassment in the future, Random House should take better care in promoting its authors' works in the future.
Rating: 4
Summary: Comprehensive and readable book on aftermath of World War I
Comment: The American president discovers that the U.S. has a deep commonality of beliefs and goals with the British, while he comes to view the French delegation as "the hardest I ever tried to do business with." The winning coalition is in the process of trying to destroy the militarism of the vanquished, while rehabilitating the vanquished nation. Leaders face the generic question of which groups of people define a "nation," deserving of self-determination. Do shared race, religion, ethnicity, language, or even alphabet comprise a "nation" ?
No, this is not Baghdad 2003, but Paris 1919.
As an earlier review said, the story of the post-World War I peace conference in Paris in 1919 is a "complex series of parallel stories," which are masterfully told by author MacMillan. The author provides in-depth coverage of the peace conference, while also giving the reader background on the history of each country and important diplomat, providing an understanding of each country's motivations and agenda in Paris, together with each delegation's political pressures at home.
It was definitely a different time -- a time of paternalism and colonies -- a time when Wilson could pontificate about self-determination, but shoot down a proposed clause in the treaty calling for racial equality. The racial equality clause was proposed by our Japanese allies who were insulted by laws such as California's, which not only segregated Japanese but prohibited land ownership by Japanese. The dismissal of this Japanese proposal helped put Japan and the U.S. on an adversarial path.
It was a time when the British blithely decided that the very different peoples in Mesopotamia should be brought together into what are now the borders of Iraq.
The respective rights of Zionists and Palestinians in the Middle East were at issue.
A young kitchen assistant at the Paris Ritz hotel sent in a petition asking that his native country, Vietnam, be granted independence from France. The petition was ignored, and the kitchen assistant was Ho Chi Minh.
The conference also faced the issues of the end of the Russian monarchy, and the new Bolshevik revolution. Although the Bolsheviks weren't in control of all Russia, should the Bolsheviks be recognized and invited to Paris? The political missteps here helped convince the Soviets that the Allies were not their friends.
Perhaps the largest issue, of course, was how to treat Germany. How important was it to assign "guilt" to Germany for World War I? How just was it to compel war reparation payments from Germany? What should have been included in the "bill" ? How large should those payments have been -- how much of Germany's economic product should be taken from it? Did the fact, and size, of these payments contribute to the rise of Hitler, and the Second World War? MacMillan deals with these issues at length.
The Paris Peace conference came down to several men sitting in a room and talking, remaking the world as they did. The ramifications of what they decided will continue well into the future. MacMillan says, "If they could have done better, they certainly could have done much worse."
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the historical underpinnings of the current world situation. When you finish it, it's like listening to the Paul Harvey feature -- "and now you know the rest of the story."
Rating: 3
Summary: highly readable serious history
Comment: I'm not normally a reader of history, but this book grabbed and held my attention. It provided, very enjoyably, a better background to the world than my recollections of high school and college studies.
Unfortunately, either the writing or the research tailed off near the end. The section on the Middle East was less detailed and written with less impact.
I still recommend this book as a good read.
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Title: Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson ISBN: 0465023282 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman ISBN: 0393051447 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin ISBN: 0805068848 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson ISBN: 0805062882 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 02 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power by Warren Zimmermann ISBN: 0374179395 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 21 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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