Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17305 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Customer Reviews

caution
An excellent and fascinating description of real politic in the days of big power hegemony. But buyers of the paperback edition should be aware that it does not contain the chapter notes , apparently by agreement between author and publisher. The result is a maddening frustration for the reader.

An enjoyable read
This book reads well and flows nicely, with plenty of lively quotations from Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson and others, as well as some entertaining anecdotes, such as that concerning the Hungarian aristocrat hired by the Albanians whose main interest turned out to be in the tooth structure of dinosaurs. Very interesting, too, to read about the sheer insensitivity and arrogance of the German delegation after it arrived in Versailles to receive the peace terms. Inevitably, perhaps, it is stronger on some topics (Franco-German borders, Bolshevism, Poland) than others (the Balkans). But it does an excellent job in conveying the sense of a small group of statesmen battling against the odds not to let their instinctive mistrust of each other derail their task of reconstructing the world order. Measured against Wilson's 14 points, much of what they did was illogical or unjust. And there were serious miscalculations, such as the encouragement of Greek ambitions in Turkey. But could anyone have done it better?

engrossing history
An impossibly broad canvas is engrossingly covered in this book. There are some excellent sketches of the key figures such as Wilson, Lloyd George and particularily the vengeful French President Clemenceau - and some equally vivid cameos of peripheral figures such as the eccentric Queen Marie of Rumania and the enigmatic TE Lawrence. Macmillan organises her wealth of information with great skill and makes the events at Versailles and the tragedy of the subsequent years truly comprehensible.

History on the grand scale from one of the best historians currently writing.