The Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture 2019—Britain and the Making of Global Order after 1919

Abstract

Abstract On the centenary of the Paris Peace Conference, the lecture explores Britain’s pivotal role in the development of a rules-based global order. It reveals how Britons fashioned the practices and norms of new international institutions, including the League of Nations, to manage relations between states, markets, and civil society. The lecture uncovers why economic, social, and environmental issues took on as much importance as the more familiar concerns of border protection and weapons’ control. It draws on the correspondence of key internationalists, including women and student activists, who wanted to institutionalize global order in a way that advanced the needs of women, children, and the family as the concern of global security, and shows how preference was given to business groups and central bankers. The lecture exposes the connected history of the First World War with the global order forged to build peace, underlining the important role of the blockade, and the multilateral relationships it engendered. It reveals how British dominance after 1919 encouraged it to use the League of Nations a multilateral hub to manage Britain’s relations with Europe and with its empire, and the legacy of this history for international relations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.