Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan
$3.99
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan Price comparison
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan Price History
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan Description
Discover “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World” by Margaret MacMillan
“Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World” is an insightful historical account by acclaimed author Margaret MacMillan. This compelling paperback, published by Random House Trade Paperbacks, explores the pivotal moments of the Paris Peace Conference that reshaped the international landscape following World War I. With 624 pages of meticulous research, MacMillan dives deep into the complexities of diplomacy and human ambition, making it a must-read for history enthusiasts.
Key Features of “Paris 1919”
- In-Depth Analysis: The book provides a detailed examination of the negotiations that occurred in Paris from January to June of 1919. MacMillan reveals how the decisions made during these six months continue to influence global politics today.
- Comprehensive Coverage: At 624 pages, this book presents a thorough exploration of the key figures involved, including Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau, offering readers a well-rounded understanding of their motivations and conflicts.
- Accessible Writing Style: Despite its academic depth, MacMillan’s engaging prose makes complex historical events accessible to all readers. This approach broadens its appeal, attracting both scholars and casual readers alike.
- Rich Contextual Information: The book not only narrates historical facts but also delves into the social, economic, and cultural contexts of the time, enriching the reader’s perspective on post-war society.
- Critical Reception: “Paris 1919” has been praised for its insightful narrative and thorough research. Readers have highlighted its ability to bring history to life, making it a recommended read for anyone interested in 20th-century history.
Price Comparison Across Different Suppliers
When it comes to purchasing “Paris 1919,” prices may vary significantly across different retailers. For instance, you can find it for as low as $14.99 on some platforms, while others may charge up to $24.99. This fluctuation offers a great opportunity to save while acquiring an essential piece of literature. Be sure to compare prices across various suppliers to secure the best deal on this insightful read.
Notable Trends in Price History
Our 6-month price history chart for “Paris 1919” reveals intriguing trends in pricing. Over the past months, the price has seen a steady decline, which may suggest increased availability or seasonal discounts. Observing these trends can help strategize your purchase, allowing you to capitalize on lower prices during specific times.
What Readers Are Saying
Customer reviews highlight the strengths and weaknesses of “Paris 1919.” Many readers commend Margaret MacMillan for her exceptional storytelling and thorough research, noting how the book reads more like a novel than a history textbook. Critics have pointed to some depth of detail as potentially overwhelming for casual readers, but overall, the reviews skew positively.
Specific aspects praised include the vibrant characterization of historical figures and the clarity in explaining the complexities of post-war negotiations. On the downside, some readers felt that certain sections dragged on, impacting the overall pacing. However, the overwhelming majority find this book a captivating and valuable contribution to historical literature.
Explore Unboxing and Review Videos
To enhance your understanding of “Paris 1919,” consider watching related YouTube review and unboxing videos. These provide visual insight into the book’s contents and layout, helping you gauge whether it fits your reading preferences. You’ll discover engaging summaries and critiques that can further enrich your experience of MacMillan’s work.
With so many features and insights, “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World” is not just a book; it’s a vital exploration of history’s impact on current global dynamics. Whether you’re a student, a history buff, or simply looking for an engaging read, this book promises to illuminate the past in a remarkable way.
Don’t miss out on this enlightening journey through one of history’s most pivotal moments. Compare prices now!
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan Specification
Specification: Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan
|
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan Reviews (7)
7 reviews for Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan
Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.
Related Products
Bookworm –
I have been after a copy in hardback for some time. I have tried reading the paper back version, but print is too small.
William V. DePaulo –
“Wilsonian” diplomacy, as taught in any mid 20th Century class on foreign affairs, was synonymous with failure — ideals like disarmament, that took hold in Europe if not America, not only did not prevent WWII. By weakening the Allies, they made Hitler’s aggression possible, indeed inevitable. In short, the idealism of the “do gooders” was repeatedly outflanked by the realism of the “do badders.” Whether stated elegantly by Hans Moranthau (“Politics Among Nations”), or more efficiently by Mao Tse Tung (“political power flows out of the barrel of a gun”), “realism” was, and is, the order of the day. The only check on power is other power. By failing to do that, the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations, deserve an “F” — unqualified failure.
At one level, MacMillan’s book represents an arguably significant revisionist view of the causal role of what happened in Paris in 1919. Her thesis is that what happened AFTER Paris in 1919 was every bit as responsible for the disaster of 1939 as the actions AT Paris. Indeed, she argues, the supposed harsh terms of the Peace Treaty were more valuable to Hitler as propoganda than they were actual burdens on the German people. The loopholes in the treaty’s limits on commissioned officers were exploited by the simple expedient of multiplying the numbers of non-commissioned officers. Shell companies in foreign countries could build the prototypes of arms outlawed in Germany. The failure to enforce the breaches of the treaty by later leaders was as important a contributer to war as was the original, flawed charter. This is the revisionist thesis.
There is another notion buried in the subtext of this book — the idea that even when not successful, some of Wilson’s ideals have persisted to this day, and in fact triumphed, at least partially. If the folks in Paris in 1919 did not adequately perceive the folly, for instance, of distributing the Kurdish people over parts of Turkey, Iraq and Iran, the fact is that today the Kurds are beginning to receive implicit recognition of their entitlement to the protection of a national state, autonomous or semi-autonomous, that conforms in broad principle with the ideals Wilson advocated.
A personal anecdote underscores the point. Over the Christmas holidays of 1991, I spent my accumulated frequent flyer miles to travel with a 20 year old nephew to Warsaw, Prague, Budaphest and Istanbul. Twelve years later, the outstanding memory from the trip is sitting at various bars when, after the beers we ordered had already arrived, two more beers or two sandwiches or two whatever simply appeared. Invariably, the bar tender’s response to our mystified expressions, was a finger pointing to some guy at the end of the bar, and the comment that he just wanted to say “Thank you.”
Two half-baked, and anonymous but conspicuous, Americans were receiving a symbolic gesture of thanks from people who were inhaling freedom for the first time in half a century (or more). And they knew from whence that freedom had come. These guys were reaching across generations to say thank you to more than one generation of Americans for standing by them, thank you for paying the price, thank you for believing our lives were deserving of dignity. Leaving Prague by train, again I was struck by the acknowledgment of America’s role, long term, in the multiple rebirths of Eastern Europe — the obviously new sign on the train station read: “Woodrow Wilson Station”. Men come and go, ideas endure.
Reading Margaret McMillan’s “Paris 1919” it is easy to become engrossed by the warts of the individuals, and the rich, telling examples of cupidity, hypocrisy and simple stupidity, that drove some of the decisions made. This comment is not intended as a criticism but rather as a caveat to the reader to be mindful that the Paris peace conference was an extraordinary human undertaking, undertaken by, yes, all to ordinary humans.
MacMillan spends 494 pages chronicling, with humor and harshness, Clemenceau’s blinding hatred of the Germans, Lloyd George’s superficial grasp of history, and Wilson’s inconsistent, and hypocritical, “principles”, all of which led to frequent mistakes (and occasional successes) of the “Big Three”. Her concluding paragraph, though, in an almost forgiving tone, acknowledges that the peacemakers had to deal with the real, not the ideal. That the reality they confronted was enormous. Beyond them, and beyond us. That we too are still grappling, all too feebly, with the same problems they addressed: Taming nationalism and religious passion that threatens peace. Outlawing war.
The power of the book is, like the event it chronicles, simply the scale of the undertaking — a litany of all that was attempted. Added to this scale is an extraordinary richness of detail for the second tier players, the representatives of all the teeming masses seeking to be free, who came to Paris on behalf of their people back home. You find yourself wishing that Wilson, Clemenceau and George had had MacMillan’s information available at the time — ah, the beauty of hindsight!
In sum, a great survey through the initial draft of the last century’s effort to create a “new world order”. And a useful, if cautionary, read for anyone pretending to undertake that task today.
Literature Master –
Very good
Andrea M –
El libro me llegó algo maltratado porque el embalaje no lo protegió lo suficiente: venía sucio y con una esquina golpeada y un pedazo de la cubierta alzado.
Patrick Lim –
There are missing pages from 271 to 286.
Eric Vertommen –
Ouvrage remarquable qui détaille toutes les négociations de paix qui eurent lieu à Paris en 1919 au lendemain de la Première guerre mondiale. La lecture est importante car elle permet de comprendre la situation mondiale après la guerre et les contraintes imposées aux négociateurs. Les négociations couvraient l’Europe, l’Afrique, le Moyen Orient et l’Asie de l’Est (Chine et Japon)
Gary Schroeder –
Following the cataclysm of the Great War, victorious European and American leaders were left in the unenviable position of determining what should be done with the wreckage of Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and other nations of eastern Europe. Never before in history had there been a need to simultaneously redraw the borders of so many lands. The decisions made by the Allied leaders at the Paris peace conference of 1919 were contentious, heated, sometimes illogical, misinformed, wise, capricious, and more. And the outcomes caused by the resulting Treaty of Versailles affect large portions of the world to this day. The story of how those leaders reached those decisions has the potential to make for compelling reading, but the volume of details necessary to fully explain that tale can also drown it. Such is the case with Margaret MacMillan’s “Paris 1919.”
No bones about it: this is a challenging book. It’s more scholarly than popular in style and it’s not the sort of book you’ll want to take on holiday. This isn’t a criticism, just a statement of fact. I admit to having approached it like a plate of broccoli; I didn’t finish it because I was enjoying it so much as I finished it because I felt it was good for me. The initiating causes of what we now call World War I are complex and the consequences of its aftermath more complex still. It might just be that there are no shortcuts if one really wants to have a firm grasp on it all. If you approach the subject with this attitude, you just might make it through all 494 pages of this book.
MacMillan’s text is best when she’s discussing the personalities behind the treaty negotiations, including the “Big Three”: America’s Woodrow Wilson, Great Britain’s David Lloyd George, and France’s Georges Clemenceau. Wilson is drawn in relatively unflattering terms as an exasperatingly stubborn and preachy moralizer, a man who relied on his own inflated sense of intuition rather than his experienced diplomatic corps, and someone who was naive about european politics. Lloyd George generally comes off well as a savvy politician, wit, and masterful orator (but who could at times show a shocking unfamiliarity with the geography of nations whose fate he was deciding). Clemenceau is described as a generally wise elder statesman who has the inside track on european affairs…and the motivations of his bitter historical rivals, the Germans. One gets the feeling that he was the realistic pragmatist to Wilson’s dreamy, half-informed naif. There are many other personages thrown into the mix as Paris was filled with petitioning leaders and aspiring leaders-to-be, all angling for their piece of a future Europe or one of its colonies.
Where I struggled with this book was in its repetitious chapters regrading the details of national borders, their geography, and the names of all of the small towns that comprised them. This is all important information if one wants to understand the facts informing the decisions made by the allied leaders, but it makes tough sledding for a reader with only moderate interest. This is where the book succeeds better as a scholarly record that a popular account. Many of these details are repetitiously sleep-inducing and one of the primary reasons that I thought I might not actually have the drive to finish it. Having said that, if you have the will to keep plowing ahead, you’ll generally be rewarded by the underlying drama.
Deliberations over where national lines should be drawn was really an impossible task that no group of men, no matter how wise and thoughtful, could have concluded satisfactorily. Their charge was to divide Europe and its colonial possessions in a way that served the need for justice, defuse the potential for future conflict, leave Germany economically viable and weak (but not too weak), and realign borders so that like people would be together. But what did “like people” even mean? How could groups of people be ordered in cohesive patterns when the contradictory criteria of ethnicity, shared culture, language, and religion are considered simultaneously? It turns out that there’s often no way to meet all of these conditions in a single solution. More often than not, the final decision resulted in two or more sides that were unhappy with the result. The history of European and Asia Minor is simply too complex to arrive at a univariate solution for binding people together under a single flag. Combined with this complexity was the fear that making the wrong decision could lead to political unrest that would drive new nations to revolution and into the waiting arms of the Bolsheviks—a very real and ominous concern which constantly shadowed the thoughts of the Big Three as they deliberated.
MacMillan draws some conclusions at the book’s finale when she flatly asserts that the Treaty of Versailles was not responsible for setting the stage of World War II. The reparations levies against Germany were not “crushing” as they are commonly described today. The treaty had provisions for payments that were conditional on Germany’s ability to pay and were tied to the country’s economic performance, and there were many “creative financing” tricks used to reduce the money owed. Further, the allies seemed to have little stomach for vigorously enforcing the terms of the Treaty as the years wore on. MacMillan believes that the idea that the Treaty was to blame for Germany’s misfortunes of the 1920s was mostly just convenient propaganda for Hitler and the Nazis.
There’s no doubt that MacMillan has completed a thorough reconstruction of what transpired at the 1919 peace conference—and I applaud her for her efforts to paint a detailed picture of events and discussions that took place almost a full century ago by carefully assembling thousands of disparate scraps. This is an important record of what happened at one of the most fateful diplomatic gatherings in modern history, and in that way, it serves as a valuable reference for historians everywhere. It just may not make for the most compelling casual reading, taxing the attention spans of all but the most dedicated reader.