“Over Here: The First World War and American Society,” is a historical novel that shows the American society’s viewpoint and emotions about the First World War during the 1910s. Author David Kennedy focuses more on the home front experience during the war rather than the military side. He educates us with the parts of history that most people seemed to forget about or pretend to forget about. With a lot of amazing details of events, Kennedy explains the period from early 1917 to late 1918. He overlooks the political aspect of the war, the American population’s reaction to Germany’s actions, and decisions made by the President and other government organizations that led to the United States to join the war.
The book starts off with a prologue that gives a good background to the situation at hand. In the first chapter, President Wilson is trying to stem the American people towards his opinion. He claims this is “the war to end all wars,” and this was a “war for democracy.” Kennedy describes “the war for the American mind” that went along with America’s decision to declare war. Wilson had been …show more content…
The League of Nations ended up failing, as well as President Wilson’s health. Shortly after the war ended, it led to the event of “Red Summer”, a time of racial riots across America. In Kennedy’s view, he says that the war quickly brought the United States into world leadership, about to the point where the British had been trying to reach for years. In his words, “The Americans, in short, disproportionately employed their profits from the war years to fuel a spectacular expansion of the home economy, rather than extending still farther their position in the world economy.” (346) I think this book is a great example of describing America’s progression of getting away from being an isolationist type of country and their transition for involvement with the rest of the
The book starts off with a prologue that gives a good background to the situation at hand. In the first chapter, President Wilson is trying to stem the American people towards his opinion. He claims this is “the war to end all wars,” and this was a “war for democracy.” Kennedy describes “the war for the American mind” that went along with America’s decision to declare war. Wilson had been …show more content…
The League of Nations ended up failing, as well as President Wilson’s health. Shortly after the war ended, it led to the event of “Red Summer”, a time of racial riots across America. In Kennedy’s view, he says that the war quickly brought the United States into world leadership, about to the point where the British had been trying to reach for years. In his words, “The Americans, in short, disproportionately employed their profits from the war years to fuel a spectacular expansion of the home economy, rather than extending still farther their position in the world economy.” (346) I think this book is a great example of describing America’s progression of getting away from being an isolationist type of country and their transition for involvement with the rest of the