The guardians : the League of Nations and the crisis of empire / Susan Pedersen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pedersen, Susan, 1959- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

League of Nations--History.

League of Nations.

Imperialism--History--20th century.

Imperialism.

Colonies--History--20th century.

Colonies.

Mandates--History--20th century.

Mandates.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 571 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Principal Players

Introduction: Guardians Assemble

Part I. Making the Mandates System

1. Of Covenants and Carve-ups

2. Rules of the Game

3. A Whole World Talking

Part II. Retreat from Self-Determination, 1923-1930

Preface: Allies and Rivals

4. News from the Orange River

5. Bombing Damascus

6. A Pacific People Says No

Part III. New Times, New Norms, 1927-1933

Preface: Enter the Germans

7. The struggle over sovereignty

8. Market economies or command economies?

9. An independence safe for empire

Part IV. Between Empire and Internationalism, 1933-39

Preface: Multiple exits

10. Legitimation Crisis

11. When empire stopped working

12. When internationalism stopped working

Conclusion. Mandatory Statehood in the Making

Appendix I: Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations

Appendix II: Principal administrators of mandated territories

A Note on Sources.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Winner of the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780191057151

0191057150

9780191773709

0191773700

9780191009402

0191009407

OCLC:

908252721