History, The Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 - Essay Example

Nicolson, who was a member of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, offers an important view of the peace process that resulted in the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919. Significantly, the author deals with the transitional phase between pre-war and post-war diplomacy and throws some light on the Paris Peace Conference. In the book, Nicolson presents his theses in the background of his memory concerning those congested days and offers a convincing explanation of the major consequences of the peace treaty.

His main thesis of the book is that “Given the atmosphere of the time, given the passions aroused in all democracies by four years of war, it would have been impossible even for supermen to devise a peace of moderation and righteousness… All that I hope to suggest is that human error is a permanent and not a periodic factor in history, and that future negotiators will be exposed, however noble their intentions, to futilities of intention and omission as grave as any which characterized the Council Five.

” (Nicolson, 2001. P. 7-8). Therefore, the recollections of the British diplomat Nicolson in the form of the book Peacemaking 1919 has great relevance in realizing the consequences of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919. Similarly, the legendary economist of the 20th century, Maynard John Keynes, offers an essential treatise of social science in the book The Economic Consequences of the Peace. This paper makes a reflective exploration of these two important books about the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 in order to summarize the major arguments of the works, placing the works within the historical context of the period in which they were written.

The Economic Consequences of the Peace by the legendary economist John Maynard Keynes is generally regarded as the most influential social science treatise of the 20th century, and this