Beyond Versailles: Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and the Formation of New Polities after the Great War, ed. Marcus M. Payk and Roberta Pergher

The peace settlements that followed the First World War engineered a dramatic redrawing of boundaries in Europe and beyond, advancing in principle, if not always in practice, the right of national groups to self-determination and the protection of minorities within these new nation states. The terms of the treaties signed at Versailles, Sèvres, St Germain, Neuilly and Trianon were negotiated over the course of a year in meeting rooms and hotels across Paris. The scholarly picture of the Paris peace settlement has developed substantially in the last twenty-five years, giving us a rich and nuanced picture of the motivations of the negotiators, and the many competing imperatives within and beyond delegations. Studies have highlighted the range of activism taking place in Paris in 1919, as campaigners who were not directly involved in the peace conference understood the necessity of a presence in the city. And we have a better understanding...