The guardians : the League of Nations and the crisis of empire /

At the end of the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference saw a battle over the future of empire. The victorious allied powers wanted to annex the Ottoman territories and German colonies they had occupied; Woodrow Wilson and a groundswell of anti-imperialist activism stood in their way. France,...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
1. Verfasser:
Pedersen, Susan
Format:
Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:
Englisch
Veröffentlicht:
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015.
Ausgabe:
First edition.
Zusammenfassung:
At the end of the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference saw a battle over the future of empire. The victorious allied powers wanted to annex the Ottoman territories and German colonies they had occupied; Woodrow Wilson and a groundswell of anti-imperialist activism stood in their way. France, Belgium, Japan and the British dominions reluctantly agreed to an Anglo-American proposal to hold and administer those allied conquests under mandate from the new League of Nations. In the end, fourteen mandated territories were set up across the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific. Against all odds, these disparate and far-flung territories became the site and the vehicle of global transformation. In this masterful history of the mandates system, Susan Pedersen illuminates the role the League of Nations played in creating the modern world. Tracing the system from its creation in 1920 until its demise in 1939, Pedersen examines its workings from the realm of international diplomacy; the viewpoints of the Leagues experts and officials; and the arena of local struggles within the territories themselves. Featuring a cast of larger-than-life figures, including Lord Lugard, King Faisal, Chaim Weizmann and Ralph Bunche, the narrative sweeps across the globe-from windswept scrublands along the Orange River to famine-blighted hilltops in Rwanda to Damascus under French bombardment-but always returns to Switzerland and the sometimes vicious battles over ideas of civilization, independence, economic relations, and sovereignty in the Geneva headquarters. As Pedersen shows, although the architects and officials of the mandates system always sought to uphold imperial authority, colonial nationalists, German revisionists, African-American intellectuals and others were able to use the platform Geneva offered to challenge their claims.
Umfang:
1 online resource (xiv, 571 pages) : illustrations
Anmerkungen:
Description based upon print version of record.
Auszeichnungen:
Winner of the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature
Anmerkungen:
English
Bibliografie:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
9780191057151
0191057150
9780191773709
0191773700
9780191009402
0191009407
Schlagworte:
Bezugswerke:
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