What Is Japan?

Political Science

Washington and the Riddle of Peace

by H. G. WELLS (1866 - 1946)

As an observer at the WASHINGTON CONFERENCE FOR THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS held in 1921 and attended by the victorious nations of The Great War, the acclaimed author H. G. Wells wrote 29 short essays that were serialized in the New York World and other newspapers. This book is a collection of those essays. They are not a record or description of the Conference, but the impressions of one visitor. Wells noted that the failed League of Nations was the first American initiative toward an organized world peace, and in its absence “the American mind has produced this second experiment, which has been tried with the loosest of constitutions and the most severely defined and limited of aims. Instead of a world constitution we have had a world conversation.” The essays relate “one observer’s conviction of how things can be done, and of how they need to be done, if our civilization is indeed to be rescued from the dangers that encompass it and set again upon the path of progress.” While history would not bear out all of Wells’ various expressions of optimism and pessimism, his vision of world peace nevertheless remains relevant today. ( Lee Smalley)

Listen next episodes of Washington and the Riddle of Peace:
A Reminder about War , About the War Debts , Africa and the Association of Nations , America and Entangling Alliances , An Association of Nations , China in the Background , Ebb Tide at Washington , France and England—the Plain Facts of the Case , France in the Limelight , India, the British Empire and the Association of Nations , 'Security'—the New and Beautiful Catchword , Some Stifled Voices , The Foundation Stone and the Building , The Fourth Plenary Session , The Future of Japan , The Larger Question behind the Conference , The Other End of Pennsylvania Avenue—the Sieve for Good Intentions , The Possible Breakdown of Civilization , The Real Threat to Civilization , Thus Far , What a Stably Organized World Peace Means For Mankind , What of America?