America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Critical Issues in American History) - Softcover

Zieger, Robert H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0847696456 ISBN 13: 9780847696451

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

Recent bestsellers by Niall Ferguson and John Keegan have created tremendous popular interest in World War I. In America's Great War prominent historian Robert H. Zieger examines the causes, prosecution, and legacy of this bloody conflict from a frequently overlooked perspective, that of American involvement. This is the first book to illuminate both America's dramatic influence on the war and the war's considerable impact upon our nation. Zieger's engaging narrative provides vivid descriptions of the famous battles and diplomatic maneuvering, while also chronicling America's rise to prominence within the postwar world. On the domestic front, Zieger details how the war forever altered American politics and society by creating the National Security State, generating powerful new instruments of social control, bringing about innovative labor and social welfare programs, and redefining civil liberties and race relations. America's Great War promises to become the definitive history of America and World War I.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert H. Zieger is professor of history at the University of Florida.

Review:

In this captivating and clearly presented work, noted University of Florida historian Zieger (The CIO, 1935-1955) explores the relatively brief role of the U.S. in WWI. (Publishers Weekly)

Zieger's deft historical synthesis of American society during WW I makes this volume informative for scholars and teachers, interesting for general readers, and especially useful for students. A superb synthesis, for all levels. (CHOICE)

Prize-winning historian Robert H. Zieger has written another exemplary book―this one a judicious and insightful examination of the American experience during the Great War. In this eminently readable, thoughtful, and well-reseached work, he has produced a masterful synthesis that instructs, challenges, fascinates. A model of scholarly analysis, Zieger's study will engage the interest of specialists, students, and general readers alike. (LeRoy Ashby, Washington State University)

World War I was the seminal cataclysm of the twentieth century. Professor Zieger's lucid volume is a discerning and provocative exploration of its consequences for the American people. (George H. Nash, author of The Life of Herbert Hoover)

Robert Zieger, the distinguished historian of labor, has produced in America's Great War a superb overview of the national experience in World War I. He adds to diplomatic, political, and military history a close examination of the war's impact on women, minorities, and workers. He provides a lucid and fair-minded examination of how America helped the Allies win the war and lose the peace, and incisively analyzes Woodrow Wilson, the conflicted, obsessive self-defeating president around whom the entire war turned. Taking advantage of the latest scholarship, while weaving it skillfully into his own powerful narrative, Zieger has made this the best introduction yet to America's role in the defining event of the 20th Century. (William L. O'Neill, Professor of History, Rutgers University; author of Coming Apart)

Three qualities have always characterized Robert Zieger's work: thorough familiarity with the pertinent literature; balanced and thoughtful analysis; and a graceful writing style. Each of these are evident in this volume. (Burton Kaufman, Miami University, Ohio)

The writing is lively, specific, and clear, but what impresses me most about this volume is its fairness. Zieger demonstrates that the strongest arguments from apparently clashing interpretations can be brought together to make a balanced, persuasive synthesis. (Kendrick Clements, University of South Carolina)

This well-crafted book takes the measure of America's experience in World War I both at home and on the European battlefield, gauging the lofty hopes with which so many Americans entered the fray and plumbingthe tragic legacy of the war with equal care. The work of a historian who combines uncommon skill with a deeply humane vision, America's Great War provides readers the best single-volume introduction to its subject now in print. (Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University)

Brimming with sharp judgments and keen insights, Zieger's is the best book yet on the American experience in World War I. Zieger skillfully places the war in historical perspective, showing how the events of 1917-18 shaped the century to come. But he also conveys a sense of how the unfolding drama of war, with all its uncertainties, appeared to Americans at the time. (Patrick J. Maney, author of The Roosevelt Presence: The Life and Legacy of FDR)

Anyone looking for a first-rate book on the United States and World War I will derive great pleasure and insight from Robert Zieger's America's Great War. This is a concise, balanced, thoughtful, and well-written account of domestic, military, and diplomatic aspects of a war that has greatly influenced American life and institutions in the ensuing 80 years. (James T. Patterson, Brown University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0847696456
• ISBN 13: 9780847696451
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304