How Quickly We Forget

It's hard to think of an international controversy today that didn't have its origins, in one way or another, in World War I. That becomes perfectly clear in reading A Shattered Peace, David Andelman's excellent new book.

Andelman outlines the stupidity and shortsightedness of the conferees of the Versailles peace conference, and how it set the tone for the remainder of the 20th Century. It particularly resonates today, because a little country called Iraq was created at Versailles. Yet I doubt that most people nowadays have ever even heard of Versailles, or, if they have, had thought of it only in the context of Germany.

Andelman is a former New York Times and CBS News foreign correspondent, now executive editor at Forbes.com, and his writing is breezy and informative in the tradition of Cornelius Ryan. It would be a great last-minute Christmas gift.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.