An Historian in Peace and War

Book excerpt: This volume provides the fully edited and annotated diaries of the scholar, soldier and diplomat Harold Temperley (1879-1939), covering his travels in the Balkans, his work for British military intelligence during the First World War, and his role in the Versailles peace conference. As a trained historian, he was aware of the importance of recording events as they unfolded, and regarded his diary as a means of preserving a non-official record. As such, this edition of Temperley's diaries offers scholars a direct and hitherto neglected perspective on some of the most important events that shaped twentieth-century Europe.