Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World | 
| Author: Margaret Macmillan
Creator: Richard Holbrooke
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  127 reviews
Sales Rank: 9693
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0375760520
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.3141
EAN: 9780375760525
ASIN: 0375760520
Publication Date: September 9, 2003
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Product Description
National Bestseller
New York Times Editors’ Choice
Winner of the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize
Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize
Silver Medalist for the Arthur Ross Book Award
of the Council on Foreign Relations
Finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
For six months in 1919, after the end of “the war to end all wars,” the Big Three—President Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, and French premier Georges Clemenceau—met in Paris to shape a lasting peace. In this landmark work of narrative history, Margaret MacMillan gives a dramatic and intimate view of those fateful days, which saw new political entities—Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Palestine, among them—born out of the ruins of bankrupt empires, and the borders of the modern world redrawn.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 122 more reviews...
 The history of the conclusion of WW I March 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This work is all about the treaty that brought World War One to a close. It's also takes a detailed look at the various, (and often, "nefarious"), world leaders who were the principals in fleshing out that final agreement which, by the way, was never ratified by the U.S, Congress.
I especially liked the book because it's sort of an unvarnished mini-biography of Woodrow Wilson. I came away seeing Wilson as both incompetent and a bit of a loser. The book also verified what I already knew about governments in general: they're NOT there to help you and their leaders harbor personal power agendas that are rarely, if ever, in the public interest.
A lot of countries got screwed (I couldn't think of a more appropriate term!) as a result of the Versailles Treaty and, perhaps, I differ a bit in my personal conclusions about this from the author and the conclusions she has drawn. Still, the book itself arms one with all the facts, and there's not much editorializing, and for that I praise Macmillan.
I doubt that there is a better documentation of this period and place anywhere. Macmillan was very thorough in her research and it's a fine book. I most enjoyed the discussion of "Lawrence of Arabia" and his dillemma.
If I have a complaint about the book it's simply that, even accounting for the fact that it's non-fiction, I didn't find that it was a very fluid read. This was a book that I had to make myself finish and, after the fact, I'm pleased that I did.
 Best history book I've ever read January 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've read some great history books before, including 1776 and America's Longest War. But this is the best. It shows in astonishing detail that the greatest errors made in 1919 by President Wilson were not in allowing the British and French to impose overly punitive reparations on Germany (though that is partly true, this familiar thesis is turns out to be overblown -- the greater error with respect to Germany was not following the young Keynes's advice and starting the EEC in 1919). Even worse, Wilson gave into American and European racists who could not tolerate Japan's proposed "racial equality clause" and thus had to accept Japan's demand for a slice of Chinese territory -- thus weakening the League's moral credibility, embolding Japanise colonialism, and driving betrayed Chinese intellectuals into the hands of Lenin. This is not your 11th grade history textbook: this is what really happened, with incredible detail about the tangle of problems in region after region -- Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the new Yugoslavia, Italy's attempted land grabs, Greece's ambitions and their terrible consequences, the disasterous policies in the middle east. The cast of major characters are painted in vivid detail; I almost feel I know these men after reading this amazing book. Through it all, the tragedy of Wilson's humanitarian dream comes through keenly -- compromised away in efforts to save the League of Nations that only ended up making it worthless. Here is a thought for the future: Henry Cabot Lodge and his Republican opponents of the League would have accepted a league that only included democracies. But Wilson would not compromise were it would have helped, only where is harmed, it seems. Perhaps we should go back to Lodge's idea now and consider a new Federation of Democratic Nations to replace the defunct U.N. -- and try to revive Wilson's lost dream.
IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME January 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In assessing the 20th Century I tell people the pivotal event was the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand that touched off the first world war. Granted, if that had not happened something else probably would have caused the war sometime within that timeframe but such was not the case.
The assassination and the resulting catastrophic war eventually led to a cessation of hostilities in November 1918 when the Germans and the Axis Powers were more exhausted than the exhausted Allies. As the victors, the Allies met in Paris to establish the terms for surrender. The Allies also decided to set the terms for not just peace but a lasting peace in Europe specifically and the world generally.
However, the main architects of what was to be the Treaty of Versailles (Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of England, and Woodrow Wilson of the US) were also humans prone to many human faults. For one thing, they were political leaders susceptible to political pressures. While Wilson was more sympathetic to the losing side of the war the British and French -- especially the French who hosted the western front for four miserable years -- were not sympathetic. The Russians were invited even though their new Bolshevic Government had withdrawn in early 1918 but the invitation was more of an obligation than an actual desire to have them in Paris to make things more difficult. To the relief of the Allies, the Russians chose not to participate.
When I first got the book I thumbed through it and my immediate thought was that it was going to be boring. Once I got into the book it was anything but boring. The interactions between the leaders and their staffs and their different agenda was fascinating and gave a clearer understanding as to why their efforts to redraw the boundaries of Europe and the world -- nobel as they were -- were probably doomed to failure. Perhaps the world would have been better off without the Paris negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles and the resulting League of Nations. But in 1919 the victorious leaders could not look ahead to see that their efforts to redraw Europe and the world was a mistake.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Exceptional Book December 11, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author does an exceptional job of writing an easily read and understood book about a very complex part of history. Getting past the easily taken road of blaming the Paris Peace Conference for many of the ills the world has experience since, the author provides what I believe to be a very balanced look at the events in Paris in 1919. Although readily admitting that many mistakes were made by the peacemakers, some that could have been avoided, the author does an excellent job of considering the many factors that made many of the decisions seem more resonable when they are considered. Some of these factors include: rising and competing nationalist feelings, strategic security and economic considerations, the circumstances of the "peacemakers" (primarily the U.S., England, France, and Italy) at the end of WWI - especially their economic and military situations, perceived future threats to the international community, and the desires of the people whose futures were being decided.
Bottom line - a wonderful book and highly recommend to anyone looking for a single book describing this time in history.
How the world was reordered December 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the aftermath of the Great War decisions were made in Paris that decided the history of the world for the next century. MacMillan does a creditable job of making sense the negotiations that took place in 1919 to divide up the planet after the total collapse of the Central Powers and the Russian Empire. She addresses dozens of issues involved in the meetings and committees of the Versailles conference and the politics involved amongst the victorious allies. Millions were taken from their Ottoman and German colonial masters and given over to the French and British. The United States was offered a Mandate over the Kurds but refused it as Wilson did not want to get involved in middle east colonialism. The existence of new states was recognized and the colonial authority of France, Britain and, ominously, Japan was reinforced.
A good book and the best I've seen on the subject.
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