THE GUARDIANS: THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE CRISIS OF EMPIRE

Book ID/图书代码： 00200015B79617

English Summary/英文概要： The First World War threw the imperial order into crisis. New states emerged from the great European land empires, while Germany’s African and Pacific colonies, and the Ottoman provinces in the Middle East fell into allied hands. Britain, France, Belgium, Japan, and the British dominions wanted to keep the new states, but Woodrow Wilson and the millions converted to the ideal of self-determination thought otherwise. At the Paris Peace conference of 1919, the allies agreed reluctantly to govern their new conquests according to international and humanitarian norms and under ’mandate’ from the League of Nations.

As The Guardians shows, this decision had enormous consequences. The allies sought to use the League to safeguard imperial authority, but that authority was undermined by the mechanisms for international oversight they had themselves created. Colonial nationalists and humanitarians exploited new rights of petition or opportunities for publicity to expose abuses or scandals; Germans resentful of the loss of their colonies and Italians eager to found a new empire arrived in Geneva to demand a repartition of the spoils. As imperial politicians wearied of continual scandals and crises - revolts in South West Africa, Syria, Samoa, and Palestine; famine in Rwanda; labour abuses in New Guinea; extortionate oil contracts in Iraq - they began to question whether independent states might be easier to deal with than territories subject to international scrutiny.

Drawing on research in four continents and dozens of archives, and bringing to life a global network of nationalists, humanitarians, international bureaucrats, and imperial statesmen, The Guardians offers an entirely new interpretation of the importance of international organizations in the emergence of the modern world order.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 第一次世界大战使得帝国秩序陷入危机。从欧洲的帝国版图上崛起了许多新的国家，而德国在非洲和太平洋上的殖民地，以及中东地区的奥斯曼帝国却慢慢落入了盟军手中。英国、法国、比利时和日本以及英国的统治区都希望保有这些新的国家，但伍德罗•威尔森和数以百万计信奉自治的子民们却另有打算。在1919年的巴黎和会上，同盟国们极不情愿的同意了根据国际条约、人权道义和国际联盟的“授权”去管理新的占领地区。

正如《守卫者》为我们呈现的，这一决定将产生极其巨大的影响。同盟国们希望通过联盟组织去捍卫帝国的权力，但殊不知恰恰是他们自己所创造出的国际监管机制在削落着这一份权力。殖民民族主义者和人权主义者们极尽所能的寻找着新的请愿权和机会，让公众们看到权力的滥用和丑闻；憎恨着殖民地流失的德国人和渴望建立新帝国的意大利人们纷纷来到日内瓦，要求重新分配。持续不断的丑闻与危机另帝国的政治家们疲惫不----非洲西南部、叙利亚、萨摩亚和巴勒斯坦的暴乱；卢旺达的饥荒；新日内瓦的劳动力虐待；敲诈式的伊拉克石油契约接踵而至，他们不由得开始质疑：是否比起国际统一监管，独立的自治国家形式会更利于管理。

《守卫者》引用了来自四哥大陆的大量研究资料及无数档案，为读者们呈现了一张全球民族主义、人权主义、国际官僚以及帝国政客们的生动图景，并从全新的角度为读者们解读了国际组织在现代世界秩序中的重要作用。（DC）

Awards/获奖情况：[A] path-breaking study (Tony Barber, Books of the Year 2015, Financial Times)

[An] original, stimulating and thoroughly researched examination of how the new League managed to sustain a façade of trusteeship in a world of selfish imperial interests... This is a fascinating examination of empire in its final death throes. (Literary Review, Richard Overy)

A richly detailed study of the League’s Permanent Mandates Commission... Pedersen’s book is genuinely revelatory a long disquisition on the politics of unintended consequences, as a bureaucratic system designed to uphold and legitimise imperial reconstruction provided the tools for its undoing. (Financial Times, Duncan Kelly)

The first indispensable book written on a critical subject in 50 years... fair-minded, hard-hitting and readable... The Guardians is a magnificent book. (Wall Street Journal (Europe), WM. Roger Louis)

A strikingly original book. (Mark Mazower, The Guardian)

The Guardians is not simply a brilliant, beautifully executed study of the League as a major actor in the interwar years. It is also a cautionary tale about international governance today. (Diplomatic History)

This outstanding work of scholarship, with its formidable apparatus, is also a work of high literary art. Without sacrifice of intellectual standards, it eschews the cant and jargon that disfigure so much current academic writing on imperialism. It throws fascinating sidelights on many aspects of international affairs in the interwar period as well as on the history of each of the mandated territories, especially Palestine. The author’s declared aim to "anatomize ... a system in motion" has been magnificently achieved. (Journal of Israeli History)

The book is important and deals with an important, hitherto understudied, theme The Guardians is very well written, with clarity and precision, compelling themes and illuminating detail ... Dr Pedersen always knows where she is going, and she takes us there efficiently. Her research is exemplary. (Reviews in History)

About the Author/作者介绍： 苏珊•培德森出生于加拿大的一个传教士家庭中，并在日本和明尼苏达度过了童年时光。18岁那年她被哈佛录取获得救赎，随后在那里一呆就是26个年头，经历了学生、教员以及院长等职位。作为一名专攻英国与欧洲历史的史学家，她不仅兴趣广泛，对各类深入研究兴趣盎然，此外还著有大量各类题材的作品，包括有女性运动史、福利国家起源、英国在肯尼亚、香港和巴勒斯坦等地的统治等。自2003年起，她成为了哥伦比亚大学的一名教员，主要负责教授英国与全球历史课程以及柏拉图、尼采等的著作赏析课程。作者现与其丈夫和两名孩子居住在曼哈顿市。

Susan Pedersen was born to Canadian missionary parents and spent her childhood in Japan and Minnesota. Rescued by Harvard at the age of 18, she spent the next 26 years there as a student, faculty member, and sometime Dean for Undergraduate Education. A historian of Britain and Europe with wide interests and an a penchant for far-flung research, she has written on subjects ranging from the history of women’s movements, to the origins of welfare states, to British rule in Kenya, Hong Kong, and Palestine. Since 2003, she has been on the faculty at Columbia University, where she teaches courses on British and international history, and on ’great books’ from Plato to Nietzsche. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

Format:照片

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