America and the Great War

America and the Great War PDF Author: Margaret E. Wagner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620409836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year for 2017 "A uniquely colorful chronicle of this dramatic and convulsive chapter in American--and world--history. It's an epic tale, and here it is wondrously well told." --David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of FREEDOM FROM FEAR From August 1914 through March 1917, Americans were increasingly horrified at the unprecedented destruction of the First World War. While sending massive assistance to the conflict's victims, most Americans opposed direct involvement. Their country was immersed in its own internal struggles, including attempts to curb the power of business monopolies, reform labor practices, secure proper treatment for millions of recent immigrants, and expand American democracy. Yet from the first, the war deeply affected American emotions and the nation's commercial, financial, and political interests. The menace from German U-boats and failure of U.S. attempts at mediation finally led to a declaration of war, signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917. America and the Great War commemorates the centennial of that turning point in American history. Chronicling the United States in neutrality and in conflict, it presents events and arguments, political and military battles, bitter tragedies and epic achievements that marked U.S. involvement in the first modern war. Drawing on the matchless resources of the Library of Congress, the book includes many eyewitness accounts and more than 250 color and black-and-white images, many never before published. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy, America and the Great War brings to life the tempestuous era from which the United States emerged as a major world power.

America and the Great War

America and the Great War PDF Author: Margaret E. Wagner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620409836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year for 2017 "A uniquely colorful chronicle of this dramatic and convulsive chapter in American--and world--history. It's an epic tale, and here it is wondrously well told." --David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of FREEDOM FROM FEAR From August 1914 through March 1917, Americans were increasingly horrified at the unprecedented destruction of the First World War. While sending massive assistance to the conflict's victims, most Americans opposed direct involvement. Their country was immersed in its own internal struggles, including attempts to curb the power of business monopolies, reform labor practices, secure proper treatment for millions of recent immigrants, and expand American democracy. Yet from the first, the war deeply affected American emotions and the nation's commercial, financial, and political interests. The menace from German U-boats and failure of U.S. attempts at mediation finally led to a declaration of war, signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917. America and the Great War commemorates the centennial of that turning point in American history. Chronicling the United States in neutrality and in conflict, it presents events and arguments, political and military battles, bitter tragedies and epic achievements that marked U.S. involvement in the first modern war. Drawing on the matchless resources of the Library of Congress, the book includes many eyewitness accounts and more than 250 color and black-and-white images, many never before published. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy, America and the Great War brings to life the tempestuous era from which the United States emerged as a major world power.

The Americans in the Great War - Vol I

The Americans in the Great War - Vol I PDF Author: Michelin Guides
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1781505675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Volume I of III This admirable account of the part played by the American army on the Western Front is in three volumes. This first volume is concerned with the Second Battle of the Marne covering the period May-August 1918 and the first forty or so pages provides an historical background to the fighting, supported by good, clear maps and interesting photographs. The rest of the book is taken up with a three-day battlefield tour with a map for each day, taking in Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, Soissons, Fismes and all places of interest in between with an account of any actions. The tour ends back in Paris.

Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America

Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America PDF Author: Jennifer D. Keene
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801874468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
How does a democratic government conscript citizens, turn them into soldiers who can fight effectively against a highly trained enemy, and then somehow reward these troops for their service? In Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America, Jennifer D. Keene argues that the doughboy experience in 1917–18 forged the U.S. Army of the twentieth century and ultimately led to the most sweeping piece of social-welfare legislation in the nation's history—the G.I. Bill. Keene shows how citizen-soldiers established standards of discipline that the army in a sense had to adopt. Even after these troops had returned to civilian life, lessons learned by the army during its first experience with a mass conscripted force continued to influence the military as an institution. The experience of going into uniform and fighting abroad politicized citizen-soldiers, Keene finally argues, in ways she asks us to ponder. She finds that the country and the conscripts—in their view—entered into a certain social compact, one that assured veterans that the federal government owed conscripted soldiers of the twentieth century debts far in excess of the pensions the Grand Army of the Republic had claimed in the late nineteenth century.

American Voices of World War I

American Voices of World War I PDF Author: Martin Marix Evans
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135969787
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Using original documents from the U.S. Army Military History Institute (including extracts from letters and diaries of serving soldiers, as well as from official reports and papers), this book recalls the experiences of Americans who fought in the First World War. Individual chapters cover different periods, from Enlistment to Victory, in a chronological fashion. The book also features topics such as weaponry, medical services and entertainment.

World War I and America: Told By the Americans Who Lived It (LOA #289)

World War I and America: Told By the Americans Who Lived It (LOA #289) PDF Author: A. Scott Berg
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598535145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
For the centenary of America's entry into World War I, A. Scott Berg presents a landmark anthology of American writing from the cataclysmic conflict that set the course of the 20th century. Few Americans appreciate the significance and intensity of America's experience of World War I, the global cataclysm that transformed the modern world. Published to mark the centenary of the U.S. entry into the conflict, World War I: Told by the Americans Who Lived It brings together a wide range of writings by American participants and observers to tell a vivid and dramatic firsthand story from the outbreak of war in 1914 through the Armistice, the Paris Peace Conference, and the League of Nations debate. The eighty-eight men and women collected in the volume--soldiers, airmen, nurses, diplomats, statesmen, political activists, journalists--provide unique insights into how Americans of every stripe perceived the war, why they supported or opposed intervention, how they experienced the nightmarish reality of industrial warfare, and how the conflict changed American life. Richard Harding Davis witnesses the burning of Louvain; Edith Wharton tours the front in the Argonne and Flanders; John Reed reports from Serbia and Bukovina; Charles Lauriat describes the sinking of the Lusitania; Leslie Davis records the Armenian genocide; Jane Addams and Emma Goldman protest against militarism; Victor Chapman and Edmond Genet fly with the Lafayette Escadrille; Floyd Gibbons, Hervey Allen, and Edward Lukens experience the ferocity of combat in Belleau Wood, Fismette, and the Meuse-Argonne; and Ellen La Motte and Mary Borden unflinchingly examine the "human wreckage" brought into military hospitals. W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Jessie Fauset, and Claude McKay protest the racist treatment of black soldiers and the violence directed at African Americans on the home front; Carrie Chapman Catt connects the war with the fight for women suffrage; Willa Cather explores the impact of the war on rural Nebraska; Henry May recounts a deadly influenza outbreak onboard a troop transport; Oliver Wendell Holmes weighs the limits of free speech in wartime; Woodrow Wilson envisions a world without war. A coda presents three iconic literary works by Ernest Hemingway, E. E. Cummings, and John Dos Passos. With an introduction and headnotes by A. Scott Berg, brief biographies of the writers, and endpaper maps. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Eyewitnesses to the Great War

Eyewitnesses to the Great War PDF Author: Ed Klekowski
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786492007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Beginning with the novelist Edith Wharton, who toured the front in her Mercedes in 1915, this book describes the wartime experiences of American idealists (and a few rogues) on the Western Front and concludes with the doughboys' experiences under General Pershing. Americans were "over there" from the war's beginning in August 1914, and because America was neutral until April 1917, they saw the war from both the French and German lines. Since most of the Americans who served, regardless of which side they were on, were in Champagne and Lorraine, this sector is the focus. Excerpts from memoirs are supplemented by descriptions of personalities, places, battles and even equipment and weapons, thus placing these generally forgotten American adventurers into the context of their times. A special set of maps based upon German Army battle maps was drawn and rare photographs supplement the text.

Americans All!

Americans All! PDF Author: Nancy Gentile Ford
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603443290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
During the First World War, nearly half a million immigrant draftees from forty-six different nations served in the U.S. Army. This surge of Old World soldiers challenged the American military's cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions and required military leaders to reconsider their training methods for the foreign-born troops. How did the U.S. War Department integrate this diverse group into a united fighting force?The war department drew on the experiences of progressive social welfare reformers, who worked with immigrants in urban settlement houses, and they listened to industrial efficiency experts, who connected combat performance to morale and personnel management. Perhaps most significantly, the military enlisted the help of ethnic community leaders, who assisted in training, socializing, and Americanizing immigrant troops and who pressured the military to recognize and meet the important cultural and religious needs of the ethnic soldiers. These community leaders negotiated the Americanization process by promoting patriotism and loyalty to the United States while retaining key ethnic cultural traditions.Offering an exciting look at an unexplored area of military history, Americans All! Foreign-born Soldiers in World War I constitutes a work of special interest to scholars in the fields of military history, sociology, and ethnic studies. Ford'sresearch illuminates what it meant for the U.S. military to reexamine early twentieth-century nativism; instead of forcing soldiers into a melting pot, war department policies created an atmosphere that made both American and ethnic pride acceptable.During the war, a German officer commented on the ethnic diversity of the American army and noted, with some amazement, that these "semi-Americans" considered themselves to be "true-born sons of their adopted country." The officer was wrong on one count. The immigrant soldiers were not "semi-Americans"; they were "Americans all!"

American Battlefields of World War 1, Château-Thierry--then and Now: Enter the Yanks as told in the actual words of the soldiers

American Battlefields of World War 1, Château-Thierry--then and Now: Enter the Yanks as told in the actual words of the soldiers PDF Author: David C. Homsher
Publisher: BATTLEGROUND PRODUCTIONS
ISBN: 0970244304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
"American Battlefields of World War I:Chateau-Thierry--Then and Now is a 304-page book filled with photos from the actual battlefields, photos of the soldiers, photos taken after the liberation of the area. These are juxtaposed with photos as the sites look now. The book text is comprised of the actual words of the soldiers who were there telling their side of the battle."--Publisher description.

The Americans in the Great War Vol.1 (of 3) (Illustrations)

The Americans in the Great War Vol.1 (of 3) (Illustrations) PDF Author: Michelin and Cie
Publisher: Michelin & Cie, Clermont-Ferrand
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 111

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Book Description
When the United States of America declared war on Germany, it was not known exactly what shape their intervention would take—i.e., if their help would be limited to aiding the Allies financially and industrially and tightening the blockade, or if they would take an active part in the military operations. Opinions on this point were much divided, and if many were in favour of an unrestricted participation in the war, others were for a more moderate programme. When, at the beginning of April, 1917, President Wilson announced that America’s help was to be unrestricted, the army of the United States comprised some 9,000 officers and 200,000 men—a mere “drop in the ocean,” as numbers go in modern warfare. Marshal Joffre’s visit to the United States aroused great enthusiasm; the Conscription Bill was promptly passed, and the American War Minister, Mr. Baker, and Marshal Joffre studied the organization and transportation to France of a powerful expeditionary force. With wonderful rapidity recruits were raised, regiments formed, and training camps built. French and British instructors co-operated heartily, and, pending the creation of national war factories, France equipped the first American army with her famous 75mm. guns, 155mm. howitzers, machine-guns, etc. By March, 1918, the American Army had grown to more than 110,000 officers and 1,400,000 men, with sixteen immense training camps, besides special technical schools and up-to-date aviation camps. When, on March 28, in the name of the American people, General Pershing offered to place the whole of the forces under his command at the disposal of Marshal Foch, who had just been made “Generalissimo of the Allied Armies,” part of the new American army had already landed in France, and several divisions were facing the enemy on the Lorraine front. Meanwhile, the American Army continued to grow apace. In August, thirty-two divisions of fighting troops, besides the staffs of the non-combatant services—in all, more than 1,300,000 men—had landed in France. In October this number had swelled to 1,700,000, while more than 2,000,000 men were training in American camps. The German U-boats failed to check America’s gigantic effort for the “New Crusade,” and each month 250,000 American soldiers reached France, with their arms, equipment, and baggage. It was estimated that in 1919 the American forces in the field would be numerically equal to the entire German army. The victorious termination of the war prevented this formidable American army from demonstrating its full strength, but that portion which took part in the fighting gave ample proof of its mettle. Long before the United States declared war, American Red Cross and aviation volunteers had proved the fine qualities of the American soldier. The expectations of the Allies were fulfilled; wherever they fought the American expeditionary forces gave a good account of themselves. “We have come to kill and be killed, so let’s go ahead,” declared Generals Pershing and Bliss when, on March 28, they gallantly offered to lead their troops into battle. And it is a fact that their men did “go ahead” with a fine contempt for death.

A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War

A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War PDF Author: Tim Dayton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108475327
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In the years of and around the First World War, American poets, fiction writers, and dramatists came to the forefront of the international movement we call Modernism. At the same time a vast amount of non- and anti-Modernist culture was produced, mostly supporting, but also critical of, the US war effort. A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War explores this fraught cultural moment, teasing out the multiple and intricate relationships between an insurgent Modernism, a still-powerful traditional culture, and a variety of cultural and social forces that interacted with and influenced them. Including genre studies, focused analyses of important wartime movements and groups, and broad historical assessments of the significance of the war as prosecuted by the United States on the world stage, this book presents original essays defining the state of scholarship on the American culture of the First World War.