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shiny grey faux leather "leatherette" hardcover 4to ~ 4º (quarto). large book (8"x10"). dustwrapper in protective plastic book jacket cover. near fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. minor rubbing to spine top & bottom. edges clean. contents free of markings. dustwrapper in vg cond. chips & tiny tears along top edge, missing 1cm piece spine top, not price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings, store stamps, stickers, bookplates, no names, inking, underlining, remainder markings etc~. first edition so stated. first printing (NAP). b&w frontis. illustration. 192p. almost every page illustrated in b&w. "more than 100 photographs, drawings & cartoons". american history. world war i. journalism. world history. ~ Half a century ago the nation stood for the first time in her history on the brink of a major war. For five fateful, wildly melodramatic days, the awesome decision~to fight or not to fight~hung in the balance . while across the land and in the halls of Congress the issue was vigorously and often violently debated. FIVE DAYS TO WAR recreates the drama of those days. In scenes strongly reminiscent of today's divided attitudes on Vietnam ~ and caught here in vivid words and pictures ~ the nation argued President Wilson's call to arms while demonstrators on both sides made their strident, blatantly emotional last ditch appeals. Tensions mounted further as seething ethnic prejudices surfaced in the ugly form of wild unreasoning suspicion and open hatred. It was a memorable time. It was a time, this Holy Week in 1917, for United States Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to rout an angry assailant in the corridor outside his office; a time for the celebrated Ty Cobb, his spikes flashing, to barrel into Giant second~baseman, Buck Herzog, with a cry of " . German" on his lips; a time for our newly recalled Ambassador to Germany to interrupt a performance of the Metropolitan opera to demand the playing of our national anthem ~ and a time for other similarly irrational acts to become almost commonplace as a mood of prewar hysteria gripped the nation. On a deeper level, it was a time of national trauma ~a brief troubled moment in history as the nation struggled to adjust to a new, unfamiliar role in world affairs after a long, comfortable season in the blissfully sunny innocence of isolation. Finally, of course, the issue was resolved with the Congress overwhelmingly approving the President's request. But for President Wilson ~ this deeply idealistic "man of peace"~ it was a hollow triumph as in the growing shadows of that Good Friday evening long ago, he prepared to sign the newly ratified Declaration of War. FIVE DAYS TO WAR captures the essence of this momentous time in more than 100 carefully selected photographs, drawings and cartoons and in a vivid text that evokes the memory of an innocent America in crisis.
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