Reviews

• I do hope she keeps on writing for people like me

  I hope I don't come out as being offensive but there are places where the author gives reappraisals on Japan. I was quite surprised with the tone and I should emphasise that I was pleasantly surprised. Rewarding, interesting, and fun.

• Liberty Hills

  "The Sleepwalkers"でWWIを廻る複雑な国際関係の微妙な力学がいつしか不可逆的に大戦に進む過程をつぶさに読んだ後、MacMillanの"The War That Ended Peace”を読み、三番目にこの本にたどり着きました。いうまでもなくこの本は戦後の欧州並びに世界中の植民地の国境を引き直す大作業を進めた講和会議の様子を描写した作品ですが、それぞれの紛争地域において当事国と審判である戦勝国（途中まで日本も入っていたが途中でオフに）との交渉の様子をかなり詳細に再現しているため、 国土の再分配がどのように行われ、またどのような遺恨を残したかがよく分かります。特に今でも収拾がつかない中東（とりわけイラク）について、なぜ現在のような宗教・部族抗争が継続しているのか、その原因の生成過程が描かれているため現在の中東情勢を理解する上でたいへん参考になります。米国を筆頭に戦勝国側もたいへんなエネルギーを消費したようですが、20世紀のウェストファリアにするには、審判である戦勝国側に貫徹した理念や地域への理解が不足していたことは明白であったことも事実のようです。現在の国際情勢を理解する上でこの大戦がどう総括されたのかを把握しておくことは大変役に立ちます。

• Margaret knows her subject from top to bottom, and better still, she’s very wise about striking a good interpretation about many issues that remain controversial (even more than 100 years later - who’d have thunk it?)

• Margaret MacMillan's writing style is very easy to follow. Her book "The War that ended Peace" described the events leading up to the First World War. This book (Paris 1919) describes how the victorious powers decided to rearrange the borders of the successor nations to Germany, Austria-Hungary and Czarist Russia. Some of the borders were created by the successor nations and were simply ratified by the Big Four of Great Britain, the USA, France and Italy. Others were created by events on the ground; all were overseen (if not approved) by the Big Four. What is evident in Ms MacMillan's books is that individual personalities and prejudices affected the outcomes as much as proclaimed principles. Furthermore, she explains oddities such as Hungary ending up under an Admiral as head of government. She also describes how France sought to get reparations to rebuild its eastern regions after the war ... and laid the foundations for the next one. I haven't finished the book yet--but it is a fascinating read, well worth the time invested. This is not simply history, but an exploration of how the rest of the 20th century developed ...

• Lo que muchas veces los libros de historia reducen a abstracciones diplomáticas se completa en ¨París 1900" con el choque de las personalidades que las encarnan en tantas semanas de convivencia

• Like many people this year I have been reading about the Great War and its causes. But what was really important were the consequences of the conflict. This book examines and explains very clearly the conflicting issues for Europe in particular and what every country and politician was hoping to get out of the settlement. It's a fascinating study of the state of Europe at the time, Russia, the Balkan conflict and of course the defeated powers and the kings and empires that disappeared as a result of the war. It also shows how America was emerging as a major world power and how that was viewed by Europe. Many subsequent events have been blamed on the Versailles Treaty but this book demonstrates why decisions were taken in the context of the time, the personalities involved, what endured and what didn't. The no-nonsense style of the author and the clarity of the facts presented throughout the book make this one of the most readable history books I have ever read.

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