Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World

Without a doubt, the most frank and compelling history ever written about those crucial months following World War I, when the continent's borders were rebuilt, is found in Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919. It is required reading, full of clear analysis, sophisticated character studies, and geopolitical drama.

Men and women from all over the globe came to Paris between January and July 1919, after "the war to end all wars," to help create the peace. For the first time in history, American President Woodrow Wilson took center stage. With his Fourteen Points, he appeared to be promising so many people that their dreams would come true. Among the larger-than-life personalities who occupy the pages of this fascinating book are Wilson, who is stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security issues, and outrageously utopian in his hope of a League of Nations that would end all future war amicably. John Maynard Keynes and Winston Churchill were recruited in by the extroverted and cunning British prime minister, David Lloyd George. Lawrence of Arabia came along with the Arabs. A petition for an independent Vietnam was presented by Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen worker at the Ritz.

As the peacemakers divided up failing empires and formed new nations, Paris served as the global hub for six months. The personalities, beliefs, and biases of the individuals who formed the colony are vividly depicted in this book. They ignored the Arabs, alienated China, and forced Russia into the background. They battled issues pertaining to Kosovo, the Kurds, and a Jewish state.

It has been stated that the peacemakers were a complete failure, failing most of all to stop another conflict. According to Margaret MacMillan, they have unjustly been held responsible for the transgressions of others who arrived later. She disproves conventional wisdom on the sequence of events that led from Versailles to World War II and dispels the myth that reparations forced upon the Germans had a major role in starting the conflict.

Paris 1919, a seminal book of narrative history, is the first comprehensive account of the Peace Conference in almost 25 years. It provides a captivating look into those momentous and dramatic times when a great deal of the contemporary world was being envisioned. At that time, nations like Israel, Iraq, and Yugoslavia were founded, whose problems continue to plague us now.

Recipient of the Duff Cooper Prize, PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize, and Samuel Johnson Prize