The Illusion Of Victory: America In World War I - Softcover

Fleming, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465024696 ISBN 13: 9780465024698

Publisher: Basic Books, 2004

Synopsis

In this sweeping historical canvas, Thomas Fleming undertakes nothing less than a drastic revision of our experience in World War I. He reveals how the British and French duped Wilson into thinking the war was as good as won, and there would be no need to send an army overseas. He describes a harried president making speech after speech proclaiming America's ideals while supporting espionage and sedition acts that sent critics to federal prisons. And he gives a harrowing account of how the Allies did their utmost to turn the American Expeditionary Force into cannon fodder on the Western Front.Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, The Illusion of Victory offers compelling testimony to the power of a president's visionary ideals-as well as a starkly cautionary tale about the dangers of applying them in a war-maddened world.

About this title

About the Author:

Thomas Fleming is the author of more than forty books, including The New Dealers' War, Duel, and Liberty! The American Revolution, as well as best-selling novels about America's war experience such as Time and Tide and The Officers' Wives. Fleming is a frequent guest on and contributor to NPR, PBS, A&E, and the History Channel. He lives in New York City and Westbrook, Connecticut.

From Booklist:

In 1919 Woodrow Wilson came to Versailles almost universally praised as the embodiment of the hopes of the world for a more peaceful future. Nine decades later, there is a general consensus that his idealism and rigidity led to disasters at the peace conference and during the immediate postwar period. Historian Fleming presents what some may regard as a hatchet job. He portrays Wilson, sometimes unfairly, as vain, bigoted, intolerant, and quite willing to use governmental power to repress even mild dissension. Yet, if Fleming's personal attacks are over the top, his analyses of the consequences of Wilson's decisions are on the mark. To obtain French and British acceptance of the League of Nations, Wilson accepted their blatantly unjust punitive measures against Germany. Then, his refusal to compromise doomed acceptance of the League of Nations in the U.S. Senate. His "war to end all wars" led directly to an even more horrible conflagration 20 years later. This is a generally credible indictment of a man whose good intentions failed to deal with reality. Jay Freeman
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About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0465024696
• ISBN 13: 9780465024698
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576