A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today | Date: 28 April 2011, 05:45
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A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today
By David A. Andelman
* Publisher: Wiley
* Number Of Pages: 336
* Publication Date: 2007-10-19
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0471788988
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780471788980
Product Description:
A revealing look at the powerful lessons the Treaty of Versailles has for us today Veteran correspondent David Andelman offers a compelling new perspective on the origin of many of today's most critical international issues. He turns the spotlight on the many errors committed by World War I peacemakers that ultimately led to crises from Iraq to Kosovo and wars from the Middle East to Vietnam. He focuses, too, on the small nations and minor players at Versailles, including figures such as Ho Chi Minh and Charles de Gaulle, who would later become boldfaced names. With a cautionary message for us today, he shows how world leaders dismissed repeated warnings from their experts and laid the groundwork for a host of catastrophic events.
David A. Andelman (New York, NY) is Executive Editor of Forbes.com and a senior member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. He has also served as Washington correspondent for CNBC, senior editor of Bloomberg News, and business editor of the New York Daily News.
Summary: Good read, very insightful and informative
Rating: 5
I really enjoyed reading David Andelman's new book, 'A Shattered Peace'. His well researched, cohesive book offers great insight into the events of the early 20th century, events that continue to shape the world almost 100 years after the fact. David writes from a perspective that analyzes the personalities of the participants and the key events of the era. He foreshadows some WWII history and puts them all into a highly readable narrative.
As the treaty was being negotiated, my family, my paternal grandparents were fleeing E. Europe, crossing the lines between the White Russians, the Bolsheviks, the Poles, the Germans. They departed their shetetl (Trisk/Tursk/Turysk/Tryska) on the Bug River with a US Citizen rescuer, a relative who returned to the old country from his new home in Vermont to save the family.
The events surrounding the conclusion of World War One and the subsequent treaty negotiations had a direct impact on todays world and most importantly, it had a direct impact on my family landing in the United States. Through David's book, I could see the world events interwoven with the trials & tribulations of my emmigrant/immigrant family fleeing the old country for a new life in the new world.
All in all a great book.
Summary: Good description but absolutely awful analysis
Rating: 1
This is a book that summarizes aspects of the Paris Peace conference in a reasonably coherent manner. That is about all that is good that I can say about this book. The actual analysis of the lessons learned and the prescription for the future are absolutely atrocious. It is actually hard for me to imagine that someone as experienced as David Andelman can be so awful in learning the lessons of the past. While the author criticizes the victors of the First World War to have dictated untenable conditions on the vanquished that led to further tragedies, he doesn't seem to have learned ANYTHING!!! His recipe for the solution is homogeneous nation-states so that there are no internal racial, religious, cultural squabbles. If a nation has minorities, the solution is to remove the minorities somehow so that there are no future internal conflicts. Israel for Jews, West Bank/Gaza for Palestinians etc. etc. He doesn't seem to have taken any time to ponder on the implication of ethnic cleansing, minority rights, and the pains that have been suffered during the creation of India/Pakistan and the Hitler/Stalin-induced cleansing of the various minorities in Europe to create the modern European states. His views are so American/Western-Europe/Israel-centric; as bad as the people who were at Versailles in 1919. I questioned the author personally at a recent meeting in New York City and he appears TOTALLY oblivious to the implications of what he is saying in his book. My final analysis after an hour-long discussion with him is that he thinks racially, religiously, culturally homogenous nation-states are the solutions for the future (read, Zionists' dream). I was very, very disappointed.
Summary: Dead Wrong Conclusion, Right Facts
Rating: 3
This is a well-written, well-researched book, with good insight and valuable information. However, where it fails utterly is in basic logic. While the best and most comprehensive European treaty up to that point, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, is blamed throughout for all the world's problems, he fails to show how the Treaty was responsible.
In the vast majority of cases, the Treaty had nothing to do with the later problems of history. Indeed, many of the problems he blames on the Treaty were the product, not of the Treaty, but rather of the failure to enforce the Treaty. That, and not the Treaty, was what lead to World War II, the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The failure in logical thinking here is quite disturbing.
One of the best cases to be made as to the merits of the Treaty is the fact that the map of Europe today and the peaceful organization of Europe via common council, both stem from this Treaty and its objectives. The prevailing national boundaries of today are based on common language, the creation of nations large enough to prevail, access to the sea, and traditional historical boundaries -- exactly the formula used in 1919. The one place in Europe where the Treaty's approach to nationhood has been discarded -- Yugoslavia -- is, in fact, the place that has experienced the greatest problems. The European Union, NATO, and European Parliament of today are the extensions of the League of Nations devised in 1919. The Europe of today is very much the fulfillment of Woodrow Wilson's vision of 1919.
Summary: Those Who Don't Remember The Past.....
Rating: 5
David Andelman has written a very compelling historical account that vividly illustrates the eternal principle that those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Individuals & nations can only overlook it at their own peril, as his book so powerfully illustrates.
I sometimes coach executives on how to become global managers. It often needs to start with an undistorted understanding of history. Reading The World Is Flat is not enough. David's book is a must read to gain perspective necessary to think global, even though we need to act local.
I would not be surprised if David's book forms the basis of a movie.
Deepak / Dick Sethi
CEO Organic Leadership
Summary: Amazed
Rating: 3
I am still a bit not sure (out of shock) at how the world was shaped back in 1919 by novices and youngsters who were given a free reign to decide and chart what the world was to look like. This work sounds fictional, perhaps because I could not believe the going ons as detailed in the book. From the first chapters to the end, this is an amazing journey through the anals of history and some of the ridiculous plans and actions taken by the fathers of the mordern world as shaped out in Paris in 1919.
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