image: This is the book cover of "Jeremiah Smith, Jr. and Hungary, 1924–1926: the United States, the League of Nations, and the Financial Reconstruction of Hungary," by Zoltán Peterecz. view more
Credit: Versita
In his monograph, Zoltán Peterecz presents the personality and work of Jeremiah Smith, Jr. (1870), the League of Nations Commissioner-General for the 1924 loan to Hungary. He deals also in extenso with the economic and political problems associated with the financial reconstruction of Hungary – both on the domestic and international scene. Created in 1919, shortly after World War I, the League of Nations was principally designed to put an end to war. New Versita Open Access title offers a great opportunity to revisit a pre-war Hungary and to examine how the Treaty of Trianon deprived Hungary of its natural resources and forced a significant portion of its population to live under alien jurisdiction, setting the political and sociological climate in Hungary for the years to come.
In his multidimensional presentation, Zoltán Peterecz gives a vivid insight into the official and unofficial trends in the foreign policy of the United States after World War I. The author skilfully interweaves the diplomatic and economic history against the background of international events, and supports the narrative with an impressive body of diverse sources, which include archival materials, contemporary newspaper citations from a number of countries, and an extensive range of secondary sources.
Recommending the book, Ivan T. Berend, distinguished Professor of History at UCLA Department of History, says: "Dr. Peterecz first book on the Hungarian financial stabilization after World War I is an extremely well-researched comparative analysis. This has a lot of relevance to later financial stabilizations. The Hungarian case is embedded into the tragically wrong international political situation as a positive episode. An exemplary, very promising start of a young scholar"
The final result is indeed a valuable, well-executed and well-written work that will be welcomed not only by students of the interwar period, but also among non-specialist readers. Peterecz has provided a well-crafted book that fills a major gap in scholarly literature. The text also serves as an effective educational tool for courses on U.S. foreign policy, recent U.S. history, or 20th Century U.S. history.
Zoltán Peterecz was awarded his PhD by the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, in 2010. He specializes in American foreign policy and American-Hungarian relations in the 20th century. He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of American Studies, Eszterházy Károly College, Eger, Hungary.