Between January and July 1919, after "the war to end all wars," men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. Center stage was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully,...

"This book looks at one of the transformative moments of the twentieth century: In February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to visit China, and Mao Tse-tung, the enigmatic Communist dictator, met for an hour in Beijing. Their meeting changed the course of history and ultimately laid the groundwork for today's complex relationship between the countries. That monumental meeting--during what Nixon called "the week that changed...

For six months, the world's major leaders-including Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, David Lloyd George, prime minister of Great Britain, and Georges Clemenceau, prime minister of France-met to discuss the peace settlements which were to end World War I. The Peace Conference dealt with, among other things, winding up the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, punishing Germany, creating Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Iraq, setting up...