The Australians at Geneva: Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years

After the dubious justice of the Treaty of Versailles and the turmoil of the interwar years, the League of Nations is mainly remembered as a body that failed to create mechanisms that might have forestalled the horrors of Nazism, fascism, and the Second World War. It has understandably been overshadowed by the United Nations, that larger, more globally representative body which grew from the League, and which was founded on more unequivocally noble principles in the aftermath of a clear-cut victory of good over evil. But as James Cotton relates in this illuminating account, a surprising number of Australians lent their talents and enthusiasm to this internationalist project, and Australian interests were prominently represented. This deeply researched and carefully realised story will recast understandings of both the League itself and the place within it of prominent interwar Australian internationalists.