The Versailles Settlement does not enjoy a good international reputation: despite its lofty aim to settle the world's affairs at a stroke, it is widely considered to have set the world on the path to a second major conflict within a generation. Woodrow Wilson's controversial principle of self-determination amplified political complexities, and the war and its settlement bear significant responsibility for national borders and related conflicts in the Middle East. Furthermore, other objectives of the peacemakers, such as global disarmament and minority protection, are yet to be realised. This book, revised and updated with new material to mark the centenary of the First World War, sets the consequences - for good or ill - of the Paris Peace Treaties into their longer term context and argues that the responsibility for Europe's continuing interwar instability cannot be wholly attributed to the peacemakers of 1919-23.

'..shrewd, incisive and learned, a masterpiece of analytical narrative by a notable authority on the international relations of the period.' - Jonathan Sumption, The Spectator

Alan Sharp's teaching, research and writing has focused on 20th-century international history and British foreign policy after the First World War, with a particular emphasis on the making and implementation of the Treaty of Versailles, on which he is an internationally recognised authority.