Chris Aldrich reviewed Paris 1919 by Margaret Olwen Macmillan
Review of 'Paris 1919' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
An excellent overall read. Though it primarily covers the peace negotiations at the end of the Great War, this is an excellent primer on the backgrounds and histories of most of the major countries in the world for most of the last 300 years if not longer in many cases. It quickly puts the political situations at the end of WWI into perspective and indirectly shows why some of the continuing strife, battles, and wars since then have taken shape the way they have.
Thought not stated directly in the text, the author is the granddaughter of Lloyd George, a fact which should be taken into consideration in her presentation of the material, though as a well-respected historian, she does seem to provide both the good and bad with respect to his character and actions throughout the work and even goes so far as to say he sugar-coated his own …
An excellent overall read. Though it primarily covers the peace negotiations at the end of the Great War, this is an excellent primer on the backgrounds and histories of most of the major countries in the world for most of the last 300 years if not longer in many cases. It quickly puts the political situations at the end of WWI into perspective and indirectly shows why some of the continuing strife, battles, and wars since then have taken shape the way they have.
Thought not stated directly in the text, the author is the granddaughter of Lloyd George, a fact which should be taken into consideration in her presentation of the material, though as a well-respected historian, she does seem to provide both the good and bad with respect to his character and actions throughout the work and even goes so far as to say he sugar-coated his own memoirs blaming problems in the peace on the Americans and French.
In particular, I was thrilled to see some significant coverage of many areas of Europe about which little seems to be said in many history books including areas of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire towards the end of the war. Given current affairs, I would have appreciated more background and disposition on the situation in the middle east at the time, but the coverage here is on par with the multitude of other countries which require coverage here.
Most of the writing after the introductory chapters is actually fairly modular, so those who are interested in certain countries and nationalities can easily read the sections/chapters on those areas of the world without missing out on too much in a general sense. Though the author certainly could have gone much further afield and into much greater depth on any of the subjects, she certainly did an excellent job of distilling a range of histories, politics, and personalities relating to the peace conference into a coherent and cogent whole without losing the thread of a generally excellent narrative. I am thoroughly impressed at both what was covered here as how it was covered.
Though there were some very excellent maps presented in the book -- and certainly more than most of its type -- like most texts on world affairs and history, I always feel like there could have been a few more, or at least additional close ups of particular areas as well as other locations and areas of interest indicated which were discussed within the text.
Despite some of my critical statements above, I would highly recommend this to anyone.
