"Paris, 1919" by Margaret Macmillan

Creating a just and lasting peace after the First World War was, according to Margaret MacMillan's account of the Paris Peace Conference, an impossible endeavor. However, it is still a fascinating and important part of history, and Paris, 1919: Six Months That Changed the World tells its story very well, using the perspectives of nearly every major figure there as a vehicle for the narrative. In additon, the book also provides many succinct descriptions of the major changes that took place around the western world during and after the Conference, from the civil war in Russia to the rise of Turkish nationalism.

Although many parts of the book are broad in scope, MacMillan also looks closely at the world leaders who attended the conference, and the complicated relationships they often had with each other. Her discussion of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George is especially vivid, and gives the mpression of a shrewd, sober, and very competent statesman. Other subjects of close focus are, of course, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France, and President Woodrow Wilson of the US, two men replete with idiosyncracies that both helped and hurt their causes during the discussions.

Despite the political skill of these diplomats, the book gives a strong impression that the conference's goals were simply not achieveable. Though the power of Britain, France, and the United States was unparalleled after the defeat of the Triple Alliance, none of them had the power to dictate world affairs that they thought they had before the conference began. Beset by the conflicting demands and pursuits of the other delegations and each other, their mission quickly went from constructing a strong peace to scraping together a tenuous one that could gain the cooperation of all the parties involved before its presentation to their common enemies. Compromises were made left and right in pursuit of this goal, and many delegations wound up agreeing only with great reluctance and an ill-will that would last all the way up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

However, MacMillan also points out with great emphasis the many other factors that contributed to the world's inability to remain at peace besides the controversial decisions of the Peace Conference. Prominent examples of these include the global depression of the 1930s, Germany's social and political unrest after losing an incredibly costly war, and the tensions created between different racial and ethnic groups in the Middle East and Southeastern Europe after the imperial apparatae of Vienna, Budapest, and Constantinople were no longer around to keep them in check. Though the war had been won, it was not won completely, and as such neither was the peace.