Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (2002) is a historical narrative based on the events of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. It was written by the Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan with a foreword by American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. The book has also been published under the titles Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World and Peacemakers: Six Months That Changed the World.
Peacemakers describes the six months of negotiations that took place in Paris, France following World War I. The book focuses on the "Big Three", photographed together on its cover (left to right): Prime Minister Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France, and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States.
The book argues that the conditions imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles did not lead to the rise of Adolf Hitler. David Lloyd George is the author's great grandfather.
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The book was first published in Britain. It has won the Duff Cooper Prize for an outstanding literary work in the field of history, biography or politics, the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, the most prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in the United Kingdom and the 2003 Governor General's Literary Award in Canada.
The book has been adapted as a 2009 docudrama by Paul Cowan, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.[1] MacMillan recorded a related series of fourteen lectures for the audiobook Six Months That Changed the World: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (Recorded Books, The Modern Scholar series, 2003).
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| Preceded by Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil |
Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction recipient 2003 |
Succeeded by Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda |