Books in the Makers of the Modern World series

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been one of the most defining features of recent world history, flaring up into open war fare yet again in Gaza at the end of 2008 and provoking large-scale demonstrations in the streets of cities across the world.

The Versailles Settlement is widely considered to have set the world on the path to a second major conflict within a generation. This book, updated with new material to mark the centenary of WWI, sets the consequences - for good or ill - of the Peace Treaties into their longer term context.

Portugal's poor military performance in the First World War, notably in Africa, restricted Afonso Costa's (1871-1937) ability to secure his diplomatic aims which, in any case, were highly unrealistic. Nevertheless, his loyal press in Portugal described him as the leader of the small nations', and reported his every statement as a major triumph.

The First World War marked the emergence of the Dominions on the world stage as independent nations, none more so than Australia. Australia was represented at Versailles by the Prime Minister, the colourful Billy Hughes. Hughes was also the most vociferous opponent of the racial equality clause put forward by Japan.

The Great War profoundly affected both New Zealand and its Prime Minister William Massey (1856-1925). Farmer Bill oversaw the dispatch of a hundred thousand New Zealanders, including his own sons, to Middle Eastern and European battlefields. In 1919 he led the New Zealand delegation to the Paris Peace Conference.

Tomas Masaryk, a Czech professor of philosophy and a future leader of his people, was hard at work within a month of the outbreak of war lobbying in Paris and London for an independent Bohemia, still a major component of the Austrian Empire within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which would incorporate the predominantly Slovak regions.

The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936) was one of the stars of the Paris Peace Conference, impressing many of the Western delegates, already possessed of a romantic view of 'the grandeur that was Greece', with his charm and oratorical style.

Austria is often overlooked as one of the successor states to the Habsburg Empire. The Socialist politician Karl Renner (1870 1950) was prime minister of the government that took power in Vienna after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The author gives an account of Karl Renner's adroit handling of a difficult situation.

In 1916 Romania was promised the whole of Transylvania, the Banat both components of historic Hungary and the Bukovina in return for her entry into the war. These promises persuaded the Romanian Prime Minister Ion Bratianu to intervene in the war on the side of the Allies in 1916. He lead the Romanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference.

The US politician Herbert Hoover described Russia as Banquo's ghost' at the Paris Peace Conference, an invisible but influential presence, and nowhere can this be more clearly seen than in the deliberations over the Baltic States. This title deals with the Baltic States.

Shows how the British cultivated the Hashemite Sherifs of Mecca more as an alternative focus during the First World War for Muslim loyalty from the Ottoman Sultan, who as Caliph had declared a jihad against the Allies when the Turks joined the Central Powers, than a leader of an independent and united Arabia.

Ever since the Third Partition in 1795 brought Polish independence to an end, nationalists had sought the restoration of their country, and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 did indeed produce the modern Polish state.

World War I sounded the death knell of empires. The last Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin thought he could salvage the Ottoman state in something like its old form. But Vahdettin and his ministers could not succeed because the victorious Allies had decided on the final partition of the Ottoman state. This book deals with this topic.

The end of the First World War saw Britain at the height of its power. Its main negotiator at the forthcoming peace conference would be its prime minister, the ebullient and enigmatic David Lloyd George (1863-1945), the "Welsh Wizard" - "the man who had won the war". This title investigates the extent to which Lloyd George succeeded in his aims.

Aleksandur Stamboliiski came to power at the end of the First World War in which Bulgaria had been defeated. This book examines the origins of this traditional nationalism from the foundation of the Bulgarian state in 1878, and of the agrarian movement which came to represent the social aspirations of the majority of the peasant population.