Author Description

This is the first comprehensive account of the dispute over who should "pay" for World War I--a dispute which poisoned international relations, destabilized the world's financial system, and contributed to the rise of the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s. Kent argues that the victors had no coherent policy of eliminating Germany as a commercial or strategic threat, and that the illusion of indemnity was fostered by British, French, and American statesmen to both conceal the financial implications of the war and defuse radical agitation for heavy taxation.