Pulitzer Prize History Winner

Unfinished Business

by Stephen Bonsal

Summary

Bonsal draws on diaries he kept while serving as an interpreter and confidant to President Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference after the First World War. He records private conversations and behind the scenes maneuvering among the statesmen who redrew the map of Europe. The book offers an insider account of the negotiations and the failures that left much of the peace settlement, as the title suggests, incomplete.

Historical Context & Significance

Bonsal served as a personal interpreter to President Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, giving him firsthand access to the talks.