For more than a century, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 has remained an object of historical scrutiny. As an attempt to consolidate peace in the wake of World War I and to prevent future conflict, it was instrumental in shaping political and social dynamics both nationally and internationally. Yet, in spite of its implications for global conflict, little consideration has been given to the way the Paris Peace Conference constructed a new global order. In this illuminating and geographically wide-ranging reassessment, The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 reconsiders how this watershed event, its diplomatic negotiations and the peace treaties themselves gave rise to new dynamics of global power and politics. In doing so it highlights the way in which the forces of nationality and imperiality interacted with, and were reshaped by, the peace.
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Paris 1919: The Challenge of a New World Order
Laurence Badel, Eckart Conze and Axel Dröber
Part I: Transformations of Legal Order
Chapter
1. The Order of Versailles: A Peace for Law and Justice?
Vincent Laniol
Chapter
2. Purging the Dross? German International Law Scholars on the
Treaty of Versailles and the Post-War Order
Milo Vec
Chapter
3. The Subversive Internationalist: Japanese Responses to the Paris
Peace Conference and Their Impact on Its Interwar and Wartime Political
Performance
Urs Matthias Zachmann
Part II: Economy and Technology: New Actors and Institutions
Chapter
4. When the World Economy Came into Being: The Supreme Economic
Council and the Establishment of World Economic Statistics
Martin Bemmann
Chapter
5. The Treaty of Versailles and Transatlantic Telecommunications:
Technical Diplomacy, Sortie de Guerre and a New Techno-Strategic Paradigm
Pascal Griset
Chapter
6. The International Chamber of Commerce: Multilateralism and the
Invention of International Commercial Arbitration
Jérōme Sgard
Part III: Regional Order, International Order
Chapter
7. Regional Disorder, Partial Sovereignty and Multilevel
Negotiations: The Caucasus, 1917-20
Etienne Forestier-Peyrat
Chapter
8. Longing for Greatness: Brazil at the Paris Peace Conference of
1919
Thomas Fischer
Chapter
9. Washington of the World, Vatican of the East: Imagining Istanbul
in a New Global Order
Carolin Liebisch-Gümü
Part IV: Challenges of the Paris Order
Chapter
10. Cultural Modernity, Political Maturity and Modern Womanhood:
Soumay Tchengs Feminist Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference
Mona Siegel
Chapter
11. A Conference for Africa? Racialization and the New World Order
in 1919
Emmanuelle Sibeud
Chapter
12. Woodrow Wilson and His Domestic Critics: The United States and
the World Order after the Great War
Manfred Berg
Chapter
13. The Paris Moment: Experiences of War and Challenges of Peace,
1919-20
Eckart Conze
Conclusion: Paris 1919: Perspectives and Boundaries of Internationalization
Laurence Badel, Eckart Conze and Axel Dröber
Index
Laurence Badel is Professor of Contemporary History and International Relations at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. A specialist of European diplomatic practices, her research focus is two-pronged: the history of women in diplomacy and international relations and the history of diplomatic capitals. Her most recent publications are Écrire l'histoire des relations internationales. Genčses, concepts, perspectives XVIIIe-XXIesičcle (Armand Colin, 2024) and Diplomaties européennes: XIXe-XXIe sičcle (Presses de Sciences Po, 2021), which won the Institut de Frances 2022 Prix Edouard Bonnefous.