The title of the book is, A Better Understanding, with a lengthy subtitle, "A permanent record of the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament, and Pacific and Far Eastern questions, participated in by representatives of the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, and China - with portraits, biographies, excerpts from addresses, and the complete text of the more important treaties." This book was published by John Curtis "With the Compliments of The Washington Department of Commerce". The conference was held between November 12, 1921 to February 6, 1922. It was not a lengthy technical document by any means, but rather a book with many photographs of key participants, with an overview of important speeches and documents. Appropriate for a book funded by a Chamber of Commerce, it ends with a 25-page section on the Chamber of Commerce, banking in the nation's capital, and lots of ads.
I found a more lengthy description of the conference online from a Canadian technical document:
"It will be recalled that the first steps looking to the Conference were taken during the summer of last year. In the early part of July, 1921, the Government of the United States addressed informal inquiries to the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan (that is, the Powers lately known, together with the United States, as the Principal Allied and Associated Powers), to ascertain whether they would participate in a Conference at "Washington on a date to be agreed upon for the purpose of considering what measures might be taken in common to bring about an all around reduction in naval and if possible, in other armaments. The inquiry also suggested that, since the success of any effort to limit armaments would in all probability depend upon the removal of existing causes of misunderstanding, the Powers interested should undertake in connection with the Conference, an examination of the outstanding political problems of an international character relating to the Pacific and the Far East, with a view to reaching a common understanding on the policies to be pursued there. As a result of these inquiries the President of the United States on July 10th last announced that he proposed to summon such a Conference to meet in "Washington on Armistice Day." "
This book is in VERY GOOD CONDITION. There is a stain on the front board, upper right hand corner, and some wear at the spine. Otherwise, the boards have moderate corner wear, light edge wear. It has green endpapers to match the board color. It is clean and very solidly bound, unpaginated - looks to be about 80 pages before the 25-page Chamber of Commerce sponsored section.
RARE AND VERY INTERESTING WITH LOTS OF PHOTOS AND GOOD SUMMARIES OF KEY DOCUMENTS, SPEECHES, AND POSITION STATEMENTS.
BB10