ABSTRACT
The first major policy option pursued by liberal states in the twentieth century
that we will explore is one that might be said to be an example of how not to
propagate liberal ideas. The nature of words changes with historical circum-
stance, but few have had the resonance of reparation. The policy has been
blamed for destroying economies, even for the outbreak of the Second World
War. If the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 that ended the First World War has come
in for general opprobrium the reparations clauses have received far worse. They
provoked anger, dismay and the desire for revenge. Such is the importance of
that debate that this chapter is intended to engage in a consideration of the
imposition of reparations as key policy instruments in the settlement of wars in
the early twentieth century, taking the discussion up to the late 1940s. It will
centrally consider some of the surrounding ideas of the debate on the instrument
and try and suggest what might be the wider lessons of the (liberal) victor’s
attempt to extract reparations from the (generally illiberal) vanquished in the
aftermath of war.
