![]() ![]() More precisely, Manela analyzed the cases of Egypt, India, Korea and China. Focusing on a very specific and delimited period of time (six months), Manela attempts at analyzing how the ideals and principles expressed by President Wilson (the one of self-determination, basically), reached and affected the entire colonial world. To the two million Parisians who turned out to watch his arrival at the end of 1918 he was « the God of Peace» in Milan « the savior of Humanity» and the « Moses from Across the Atlantic»”. Mark Mazower’s sustained for instance that “no one received more adulation in his lifetime and after it than Woodrow Wilson. As reported by many documents of the time, in fact, during his first trip to Europe, President Wilson was welcomed by European people (Italian, British, French…) as the unique key player present in the international arena. From the moment when the Allied victory seemed assured and Wilson’s ideas for a new world order appeared destined for success, to the one when the terms of the Treaty of Versailles became public, so that also the failure of the Wilsonian promises became obvious. International Historians are used to define as the “Wilsonian Moment” the period which goes from the autumn of 1918 to the spring of 1919. “The Wilsonian Moment”, written by Professor Erez Manela from the Harvard University, offers us a detailed analysis over the ideals and principles which spread all around the world at the end of the WWI, thanks to the figure and the role played by the President of the United States of America at the time, Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921). Manela argued that the “Wilsonian Moment” gave rise to an era of aspiration and high expectations in the Third World in the post-World War I era, and that these expectations planted the seeds for rebellion and uprising in these states, with the pure intent of obtaining self-determination. The 1919 Revolution in Egypt, the Rowlatt Act in India, the May Fourth movement in China, and the March First uprising in Korea provided examples for the backdrop for social change and dissent. Instead of centering up on the visions and actions of the core powers, Manela expanded on the effect of the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 on the anticipations and desires of the periphery of empire, particularly, the colonial nations, using the specific examples of Egypt, India, China, and Korea. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points for world peace and justice on the anti-colonial movement. In The Wilsonian Moment, Erez Manela cleverly reconstructs the story of the colonial world at the end of World War I, and the impact of U.S.
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