The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918-1933

ISBN-13: 9780333985892 / Angielski / Miękka / 2003 / 214 str.

Sally Marks

Opis

Sally Marks' compelling analysis of European diplomacy between World War I and Hitler's advent, explores the reasons why a lasting peace failed to occur in the interwar era. Building on the theories of the first edition, Marks argues that the Allied failure to bring defeat home to the German people, and the consequences of this oversight, were partly to blame, and reassesses Europe's leaders and the policies of the powers. Thoroughly revised and updated in the light of recent scholarly and documentary research, the second edition of this highly successful text also includes new material, maps, and an extended bibliography.

Spis treści

Map1: Europe in 1914.- Map 2: Europe in 1925.- Map 3: Weimar Germany.- Map 4: Eastern Europe in 1925.- The Pursuit of Peace.- The Effort to Enforce the Peace.- The Revision of the Peace.- The Years of Illusion.- The Crumbling of Illusion.- The End of Old Illusions.- Chronological Table.- Bibliography.- Notes and References.- Index.

O autorze

SALLY MARKS is Professor Emerita of Rhode Island College. She is the author of Innocent Abroad: Belgium at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (1981) which won the American Historical Association's George Louis Beer Prize in International History and the Phi Alpha Theta Senior Scholar Award, and The Ebbing of European Ascendancy: An International History of the World, 1914-1945 (2002).

Blurb

Sally Marks provides a compelling analysis of European diplomacy between the First World War and Hitler's advent. She explores in clear and lively prose the reasons why successive efforts failed to create a lasting peace in the interwar era. Building on the theories of the first edition - many of which have become widely accepted since its publication in 1976 - Marks reassesses Europe's leaders of the period, and the policies of the powers between 1918 and 1933, and beyond.

Strongly interpretative and archivally based, The Illusion of Peace examines the emotional, ethnic, and economic factors responsible for international instability, as well as the distortion of the balance of power, the abnormal position of the Soviet Union, the weakness of France and the uncertainty of her relationship with Britain, and the inadequacy of the League of Nations. In so doing, the study clarifies the complex topics of reparations and war debts and challenges traditional assumptions, concluding that widespread western devotion to disarmament and dedication to peace were two of several reasons why democratic statesmen could not respond decisively to Hitler's threat. In this new edition Marks also argues that the Allied failure to bring defeat home to the German people in 1918-19 generated a resentment which contributed to interwar instability and Hitler's rise.

This highly successful study has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the latest scholarship. Now in its second edition, it remains the essential introduction to the tense political and diplomatic situation in Europe during the interwar years.