Published in the collection Makers of the Modern World: The Peace Conferences of 1919–1923 and Their Aftermath, this book by Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths College, University of London) touches upon two topics. It addresses issues pertaining to “the complex, but fascinating, story of the Yugoslav delegation at the Paris Peace Conference” (xi) in 1919–1920 and contributes to the collection's aim of sketching the biographies of the leading delegates at this conference. In this book, two figures are taken into account: Nikola Pašić, the Serbian leader of the delegation, and Ante Trumbić, the Croatian minister of foreign affairs of the newly born Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. There are no better figures than these two (who, as Djokić explains, were both rivals and allies) to illustrate the challenges that the new kingdom faced. The author thus divides his book into three chapters. The first presents Pašić's and Trumbić's pre-1918 political activities, the second discusses the tasks of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris (to secure international recognition, negotiate war reparations, and settle borders), and the last offers a synthesis of Pašić's and Trumbić's careers.

Throughout the book, Djokić draws parallels and divergences between Pašić and Trumbić. Although they both went to Paris with “the belief that they were on a historic mission to secure internationally-recognized borders of a … South Slav state” (67), they disagreed on other issues. Pašić embodied the manners of old diplomacy with his realistic, Bismarkian understanding of the peace treaties and his desire to avoid confronting the Allies, whereas his Croatian colleague was more inclined to embrace the Wilsonian principle of self-determination to back Yugoslav requests. Moreover, Pašić's idea of Yugoslavia essentially meant a greater Serbia within a Yugoslav framework, whereas Trumbić understood it as a looser federation. Interestingly enough, here Djokić opens the historiographic debate by arguing that “the reasons for the disagreements … between Pašić and Trumbić should not be sought in some old Serb-Croat animosity” (151). He explains: “[t]he clash of Wilsonian principles and the old diplomacy, … was also a main divisive issue among the Allies. It is too easy, especially in retrospect, to point out ethnic rivalries as undermining Yugoslavia from the very start” (79–80). In my opinion, Djokić's view here is sound and in agreement with his previous contributions on the topic. Although conflicting national ideologies were undoubtedly a destabilizing factor, one should not excessively use an ethnic rationale to explain dysfunction in interwar Yugoslavia.

In keeping with its targeting of “a general, non-academic audience” (xiii), the book's first chapter contains a historical introduction to the South Slavs. A series of biographical notes on Yugoslav actors, boxes on terminology and President Wilson's Fourteen Points, and a 28-page chronology serve the same purpose: to guide readers unfamiliar with the topic. Oddly, however, the book, which contains two maps of Europe in 1914 and 1923, shows none of the contested territories at the Paris conference—a surprising omission considering the intended audience. Moreover, given the length and the scope of the book, its account of the Yugoslav delegation's work is understandingly not without shortcomings. On the topic of the “Adriatic Question” (the imbroglio of Italian and Yugoslav claims), Djokić does not underline enough that this entanglement was extremely worrying for the Allies. His explanations of the Italo-Yugoslav negotiations are also, at moments, unclear. For instance, Djokić mentions en passant a meeting between the two parties in May 1919 (in fact the Crillon meeting, 124) but neglects to explain that this meeting resulted in a deadlock or that it initiated a new type of negotiation in which rival parties sat in different rooms while a mediator went back and forth between them. And unsurprisingly, the book does not reveal new information for readers familiar with Andrej Mitrović's Jugoslavija na Konferenciji mira, 1919–1920 (Belgrade, 1969) and Ivo Lederer's Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study in Frontiermaking (New Haven, 1963). With justification, Djokić hopes that his book, although “different in aim and scope,” will be read “alongside these two classics” (xiii); nevertheless, some readers might be bothered by Djokić's heavy reliance on these books: Indeed, more than a quarter of his footnotes refer to them.

All in all, the book offers a sober and insightful description of the immense task that awaited the Yugoslav delegation at the Paris Peace Conference and useful short biographies of Pašić and Trumbić. Yet, Djokić's book is not just about this; it is also a book about the Yugoslav idea and its development in early twentieth century.