Peace after the First World War

Professor David Stevenson will speak on the attempts to make sure that the First World War was the ‘war to end all wars’ through treaties, the League of Nations and pacifism.

This lecture is connected to the LSE Library exhibition Give Peace A Chance: From the League of Nations to Greenham Common, which has been guest curated by Professor Stevenson. The exhibition looks at the activities of international organisations (UN, League of Nations, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) alongside the work of later peace activists such as Pat Arrowsmith and CND.

Professor David Stevenson's main fields of interests lie in international relations in Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; origins, course, and impact of the First World War.

His publications include With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 (Penguin/Harvard University Press, 2011); 1914-1918: the History of the First World War (Penguin Press, 2004) also published by Basic Books (New York) as Cataclysm: the First World War as Political Tragedy; and by Rizzoli (Milan) as La Grande Guerra: una Storia Globale. German edition with Patmos (Düsseldorf, 2006); Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904-1914 (Oxford University Press, 1996) Paperback edition, 1999; The First World War and International Politics (Oxford University Press, 1988) Paperback edition, 1991; French War Aims against Germany, 1914-1919 (Oxford University Press, 1982) (Edited with introduction), Vols 1-8, 17-21, and 3-35 of Europe, 1948-1914, Series F in Part I of British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print (University Publications of America: Frederick, Maryland, 1987, 1990, 1991).

Professor David Stevenson newest book 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution is an international history of the year 1917. The book was released by Oxford University Press on 12 October 2017. It was chosen as one of Simon Heffer’s outstanding books of the year in 2017 in The Telegraph.

The British Library of Political and Economic Science was founded in 1896, a year after the London School of Economics and Political Science. It has been based in the Lionel Robbins Building since 1978 and houses many world class collections, including The Women's Library.

Follow the debate on Twitter: #LSEGivePeaceAChance.