Shortly after publishing his magisterial history of Hungary, The Will to Survive, both in English and Hungarian, Sir Bryan Cartledge, former British Ambassador to Budapest and Moscow, former Principal of Linacre College, Oxford, and an eminent historian undertook to participate in the new series issued by Haus Publishing Ltd of London, entitled "Makers of the Modern World—The peace conferences of 1919–23 and their aftermath." "This new initiative provides the framework for a comprehensive reevaluation of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–20, organized round a series of biographies of the peacemakers ... the scope of the project is as global as the events that it addresses, many of whose consequences are still with us", says Professor David Stevenson of the London School of Economics (see blurb) of the new publishing venture which is especially useful for more recent generations interested in, but rarely knowledgeable about, the aftermath of the First World War and the consequences of this tragedy for the rest of the 20th century.

Every volume focuses especially on one or two major characters of the countries that were covered by the Peace Conference. Well-known statesmen such as David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Tomáš Masaryk are addressed along with long forgotten international politicians including Wellington Koo, Paul Hymans and Zigfrids Meierovics. The book devoted to Hungary takes the somewhat unusual couple of Counts Mihály Károlyi and István Bethlen as its heroes, though one could possibly think of others whose role was more relevant to the conference itself, such as Counts Pál Teleki and Albert Apponyi. Other figures involved in this sad story included internationally wellknown leaders such as Admiral Miklós Horthy who became Regent of Hungary in the very months the Treaty of Trianon was finalised. But knowing Hungarian history as he does, Sir Bryan chose his heroes well as they proved to be leading representatives of conflicting ways of thinking and differing policies that shaped the fate of modern Hungary.

Bryan Cartledge has succeeded in doing something which few Hungarians could do with like success. He put the issue of the Peace Treaty of Trianon very visibly on the current international scholarly agenda. He argues for and against it impartially, presents his subject in a truly international context, and draws on his own diplomatic experiences to help us understand what happened in Paris and why. He is high above the traditional pro- and anti- Hungarian views of politically motivated historians, stating in his "Epilogue,"

The terms imposed upon Hungary by the

Peace Conference were not, in the main, the product of malice, revenge nor even of any powerful urge to punish. They resulted partly from the faulty structure of the Conference itself and partly from a fatigueinduced disinclination to take a second look at a complex web of demographic and territorial issues; but mainly from the determination of the Allies to satisfy and consecrate the national aspirations of the formerly subject peoples of the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy. (p. 141)

An important statement from an excellent book by an author of "insight and outlook."