The guardians: the League of Nations and the crisis of empire

Description

Introduction: Guardians assemble -- Part I. Making up the mandates system. Of covenants and carve-ups -- Rules of the game -- A whole world talking -- Part II. Retreat from self-determination, 1923-30. Preface: Allies and rivals -- News from the Orange River -- Bombing Damascus -- A Pacific people says no -- Part III. New times, new norms, 1927-33. Preface: Enter the Germans -- The struggle over sovereignty -- Market economies or command economies? -- An independence safe for empire -- Part IV. Between empire and internationalism, 1933-39. Preface: Multiple exits -- Legitimate crisis -- When empire stopped working -- When internationalism stopped working -- Conclusion: Mandatory statehood in the making.;"What happens to empires under international scrutiny? At the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919 Allied statesmen agreed to govern seized German and Ottoman territories under mandate from the newly-formed League of Nations. By professing their attachment to humanitarian norms and international law, they sought to undercut claims to self-determination and legitimize imperial rule. Yet, to their surprise, the very oversight mechanisms they created undermined their authority. As colonial nationalists, German revisionists, liberal humanitarians and African-American intellectuals sent petitions and representatives to Geneva, and as League inquiries and an international press exposed rebellions and scandals in territories under mandate, the imperial state lurched into crisis. [This book] offesr an entirely new interpretation of the role of internatuonal organizations in shaping the modern world order."--Back cover.;Appendix one: Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations -- Appendix two: Principal administrators of the mandated territories and appearancces before the PMC.