Paris 1919 : six months that changed the world / Margaret MacMillan.

Originally published: Peacemakers. London : J. Murray, 2001.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Between 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. Center stage was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the characters who fill the pages of this book. David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam. For six months, Paris was effectively the center of the world as the peacemakers carved up bankrupt empires and created new countries. This book brings to life the personalities, ideals, and prejudices of the men who shaped the settlement. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China, and dismissed the Arabs. They struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews. The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; above all they failed to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made the scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. 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.

Getting Ready for Peace. Woodrow Wilson comes to Europe ; First impressions ; Paris ; Lloyd George and the British Empire delegation. -- A New World Order. We are the league of the people ; Russia ; The League of Nations ; Mandates. -- The Balkans Again. Yugoslavia ; Rumania ; Bulgaria ; Midwinter break. -- The German Issue. Punishment and prevention ; Keeping Germany down ; Footing the bill ; Deadlock over the German terms. -- Between East and West. Poland reborn ; Czechs and Slovaks ; Austria ; Hungary. -- A Troubled Spring. The Council of Four ; Italy leaves ; Japan and racial equality ; A dagger pointed at the heart of China. -- Setting the Middle East Alight. The greatest Greek statesman since Pericles ; The end of the Ottomans ; Arab independence ; Palestine ; Atatürk and the breaking of Sèvres. -- Finishing Up. The hall of mirrors -- Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.