Baillie Gifford Prize Winner
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
by Margaret MacMillan
Summary
A richly detailed account of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where the leaders of the victorious Allied powers spent six months redrawing the map of the world after the First World War, creating new nations and dissolving old empires. MacMillan brings the key figures — Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George — to life as human beings whose personal ambitions and blind spots shaped decisions with consequences lasting to the present day. The book challenged the long-dominant view that the conference was simply a catastrophic blunder, offering instead a nuanced portrait of men navigating impossible circumstances.
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Historical Context & Significance
The author is the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, one of the central figures in those negotiations.