World War I and America: Told by the Americans Who Lived It
by A. Scott Berg (Editor), Armenian Genocide Council, French Strother
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Description
A collection of 127 first-person narratives by writers such as Richard Harding Davis, Edith Wharton, John Reed, Henry Morgenthau, Leslie Davis, Jane Addams, Emma Goldman, Victor Chapman, Edmond Genet, Hervey Allen, Ellen N. La Motte, Mary Borden, Carrie Chapman Catt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and many more. "The world must be made safe for democracy," Woodrow Wilson declared a century ago, as he led the nation into war. This collection show more brings together 127 pieces that tell the vivid story of battlefront and homefront from Sarajevo and the invasion of Belgium through the sinking of the Lusitania, the Armenian genocide, the controversy over intervention, and the terrible ferocity of Belleau Wood and the Meuse-Argonne, to the League of Nations debate and the racial violence and political repression that divided postwar America. The writing gathered here illuminates, as no retrospective history can, how Americans perceived and felt about the war, why they supported or opposed intervention, how they endured the nightmarish reality of modern industrial warfare, and how they experienced the uncertainty and contingency of unfolding events. And it shows how World War I framed issues that still haunt us: what role should America play in the world? Are our claims to moral leadership abroad undercut by racial injustice at home? What does our nation owe those who fight on its behalf? Among the writers: war correspondent Richard Harding Davis witnesses the burning of Louvain; Edith Wharton tours the war zones in the Argonne and Flanders; John Reed records the devastation in Serbia and Galicia; diplomats Henry Morgenthau and Leslie Davis report on the extermination of the Armenians; Jane Addams and Emma Goldman warn against militarism; pilots Victor Chapman and Edmond Genet describe flying with the Lafayette Escadrille; infantry officer Hervey Allen recalls the hellish fighting at Fismette; nurses Ellen N. La Motte and Mary Borden depict the "human wreckage" brought into military hospitals; suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt connects the war with the struggle for women's rights; and justice Oliver Wendell Holmes considers the limits of free speech in wartime. W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and Jessie Redmon Fauset expose the contradiction between the nation's claim to be fighting for democracy abroad and its brutal treatment of African Americans at home. The international role of the United States is debated in strikingly contemporary terms by Wilson and his critics, as the nation grapples with its emergence as a leading world power. A coda presents three iconic literary works by Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, and John Dos Passos that capture the postwar disillusionment felt by many Americans. Includes headnotes, a chronology of events, biographical and explanatory endnotes, and an index.--Jacket. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I typically have loved these contemporary histories from LOA - the Civil War Volumes, Reporting WW II & Vietnam were all terrific.
This one fell flat to me, and mainly because I found myself skipping most of the contemporary speeches and writings - I find Pres Wilson simply unreadable, and wrong and despicable to boot. The memoirs and letters are wonderful, but there are not enough of them to make the overall work more than bearable. I did appreciate the worker history, and nascent socialist movement that was snuffed out by the Wilson administration.
This one fell flat to me, and mainly because I found myself skipping most of the contemporary speeches and writings - I find Pres Wilson simply unreadable, and wrong and despicable to boot. The memoirs and letters are wonderful, but there are not enough of them to make the overall work more than bearable. I did appreciate the worker history, and nascent socialist movement that was snuffed out by the Wilson administration.
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Author Information
A. Scott Berg was born in Norwalk, Connecticut on December 4, 1949. He became fascinated with novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald while he was in high school. Berg even went so far as to attend Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1971, mainly because it was Fitzgerald's alma mater. While studying 20th-century literature at Princeton, Berg show more noticed that one name - that of editor Max Perkins - kept coming up in connection with authors such as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wolfe. He decided to base his senior thesis on Max Perkins. Berg's research on Perkins continued for several years after graduation, eventually culminating in the 1978 publication of Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, which received the American Book Award. His other works include Goldwyn: A Biography and Kate Remembered, He also made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2013 for his title Wilson. Lindbergh won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1998. He also wrote the story for a film entitled Making Love (1982). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
1 Work 221 Members
2 Works 231 Members
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Belongs to Publisher Series
Library of America (289)
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Contains
Is an abridged version of
The Lusitania's Last Voyage: Being a Narrative of the Torpedoing and Sinking of the R. M. S Lusitania by a German Submarine off the Irish Coast May 7, 1915 by Charles E. Lauriat Jr.
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Murder of a Nation; Germany Is Our Problem; Documents of the Armenian Genocide : Series No. 1; Ambassador Morgenthau's Story: A Personal Account of the Armenian Genocide; All in a Life-Time; World War I and America: Told by the Americans Who Lived It
- Original title
- 1945; I was sent to Athens
- Original publication date
- 1918; 1985; 1922
- Important places
- Greece, Asia Minor
- Important events
- World War I; Greek refugees 1922, Asia Minor Catastrophy
- Original language
- Greek
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 940.41273 — History & geography History of Europe History of Europe Military History Of World War I Operations And Units
- LCC
- D520 .T8 .M6 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania History (General) World War I (1914-1918)
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 226
- Popularity
- 144,029
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.21)
- Languages
- Armenian, English, Greek, Portuguese
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 29
- ASINs
- 14
