Phillip Dehne

Phillip Dehne’s most recent book is After the Great War: Economic Warfare and the Promise of Peace in Paris 1919 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). It examines the theme of international economic controls at the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War, by looking at the conference experience of Lord Robert Cecil, the onetime British Minister of Blockade. While following Cecil from committee meeting to dinner party, the book uncovers the transformation of the Allied blockade by those who were crafting the peace, and suggests new reasons to reappraise the efforts of the oft-maligned creators of the Versailles Treaty. By building on ideas that arose during the waging of the First World War, the Paris Conference played a central role in creating the modern concept of international economic sanctions, which were then embedded within the unique new international creation of the Conference, the League of Nations. Dehne is also the author of On the Far Western Front: Britain’s First World War in South America (Manchester University Press, 2009), along with various articles related to economic conflict during the First World War.

At St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, Professor Dehne is the Associate Chair of the History Department and coordinator of the SJC 100 Freshman Seminar program. He teaches a variety of courses on British, European, and Global History.