Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Paperback)

This is a fine work by the author of the Pulitzer winning "Freedom from Fear". In this book, Prof. Kennedy provides a thematic overview of the American experience in WWI. This is not a narrative history but an analysis of several important aspects of that experience. Topics include the effect of entry into the war and the war experience on the Progressive Movement; the impact of the war on the American economy, the American Labor movement, and the Federal Government; the experience of organizing the large army; the efforts to plan for a postwar world; and the ultimate failure of Wilson's efforts to make the US the leader of benign international order. Kennedy shows very well how the debate over war entry and splintered the Progressive movement. The suppression of dissent during and after the war dealt a serious blow to reformers and the liberal-left movement that had been the prewar engine of reform. Government efforts during the war were characterized by efforts to persuade business rather than developing a centralized economy, though central planning and coercion would probably have been necessary if the war had continued. There is a particularly good chapter on American efforts to use the war to establish American preeminence in international trade, followed by American withdrawal from that role. One defect of the book is that the thematic organization of the chapters leaves some important points unconnected. For example, in an early chapter Kennedy argues cogently that the turn to the right that accompanied the war, encouraged by his administration, would rob him ultimately of important allies for supporting his internationalism in the postwar period. At the end of the book, he makes similar points about Wilson's conduct towards European Liberal-Left movements but these two complementary points are never connected explicitly. Kennedy is an excellent writer and this book contains a great deal of first rate analysis. Recommended strongly.