War’s Legacy With A Wide-angle Lens
The ghost of Versailles 1919 still haunts the corridors of today’s “liberal world order.” On the centenary of that epochal failure by US and European leaders to forge a lasting post-war peace, Asia After Versailles takes a fresh look at the meaning of faraway events for a mixed cast of actors from Istanbul to Tokyo.
Cemil Aydin contributes a fascinating chapter on “Muslim Asia” and how the breakup of the Ottoman Empire energized pan-islamic and pan-arabic movements alongside better-known nationalist ones, such as in Turkey. Gotelind Müller shows how
Chinese anarchists (not just
Communists) got a major boost from the popping of the “Wilson bubble,” as liberal ideals were betrayed by the big powers in Paris. Japan’s diplomatic role and public response to Versailles is explored, and there is an interesting treatment of India’s complicated relationship with the League of Nations as its only non-sovereign member state.
Despite the range, there are serious lacunae:
Korea comes up often in a Japanese context but doesn’t get a chapter. Ho Chi Minh was in Paris to argue for “self-determination,” yet Vietnam doesn’t get a chapter either. The rise of communist influence in Asia as a whole is also largely overlooked, a casualty of the authors’ revisionist pursuit of alternate voices. A fresh look at Asia’s “Leninist moment” would have made interesting, and still relevant, reading.
Asia After Versailles takes a fresh look at the meaning of faraway events.