The path to war : how the First World War created modern America

336 Pages·2016·6.55 MB·English

by  Neiberg

The Path

to
War
•

The PaTh

to
War
•
HoW THe FirsT World War
CreaTed Modern aMeriCa
Michael s. neiberg
1
1
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Published in the United states of america by oxford University Press
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© Michael s. neiberg 2016
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library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
names: neiberg, Michael s., author.
Title: The path to war : how the First World War created modern america /
Michael s. neiberg.
description: new York : oxford University Press, 2016. |
includes bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: lCCn 2016006846 | isBn 9780190464967
subjects: lCsH: World War, 1914–1918—United states. |
United states—Politics and government—1913-1921.
Classification: lCC d619 .n45 2016 | ddC 940.3/73—dc23
lC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016006846
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by sheridan Books, inc., United states of america
contents
•
introduction: The road over There starts on a Commuter Train 3
1. Understanding the Two Germanys 9
2. a Cause Most Think is right 39
3. The impossible Middle 66
4. 1916 and the Wages of Guilt 95
5. no More Jerichos 122
6. election Year Politics and national defense:
an insoluble dilemma 151
7. The Melting Pot, the War, and american identity 179
8. awaiting the overt act 206
Conclusion 231
acknowledgments 239
notes 243
index 287
v

Theodore Roosevelt (left) and Richard Harding Davis together on Army maneu-
vers. Davis was one of America’s most trusted war correspondents, having covered
virtually every global conflict of his age. He became an important anti-German
voice in 1914.
Davis saw the German destruction of the Belgian university town of Louvain with
his own eyes. He, like most Americans, saw Louvain as evidence of terrible war
crimes committed by a dangerous German regime.
Like Davis, “The American Agatha Christie,” Mary Roberts Rinehart, went to
cover the war as a staunch neutral but soon became pro-Allied. She and Davis were
both skeptical of British media accounts of German atrocities.
Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson was in Europe when the war began.
He arrived in Paris to an ecstatic greeting because of his promise to donate his ve-
hicles to the French Army.
Harvard’s Danzig-born Hugo Münsterberg was one of Germany’s most eloquent
defenders. But his views were out of step with those of Americans, even those of
German descent.