4.0 out of 5 stars
The Great War: An Introduction..., August 21, 2011
This review is from: America and the Great War, 1914-1920 (American History Series) (Paperback)
"America and the Great War" is part of a series of short studies on American History. In this volume, Authors Clayton James and Anne Wells provide a quick 100 page survey of US involvement in the First World War. The narrative is concise, factual and scrupulously even-handed.
"America and the Great War" looks at the war from a modern perspective, oriented on the diplomacy preceeding and following the war, the mobilization of people and resources, the actual combat, and the after-effects on American society, including its arrival as a first class power. There is a small selection of maps and photographs, and the authors have included an excellent, if now somewhat dated, bibliographic essay at the end. This is not a detailed battle history.
"America and the Great War" is highly recommended to students and the general reader looking for a quick and well-written introduction to the topic.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Direct, almost blunt record of facts. A good review for exams, September 6, 2010
This review is from: America and the Great War, 1914-1920 (American History Series) (Paperback)
As I have in other cases, I decided to read more on this particular period in history after reading some works of fiction,
Maisie Dobbs (Book 1) and Anne Parry's Reavly family series,
We Shall Not Sleep: A Novel (World War I) and viewing a BBC series,
Upstairs, Downstairs - Collector's Edition Megaset (The Complete Series plus Thomas and Sarah), all of them set in or around World War I. I wanted to learn more about the events and people that these works had brought to my attention, and this is one of the volumes I read.
I have to admit, the book isn't for everyone. It's not that it isn't factual or thorough; it's actually too factual and thorough and reads almost like a list rather than a history. For those who enjoy the human drama of different periods of time, this recitation of bald facts and figures in a very organized and carefully structured presentation will probably leave you cold. In fact, reading a blurb on WWI in the Encyclopedia Britannica--which is actually the publishing source of the book--would probably be more interesting.
On the other hand, someone who seeks to review for an exam on the World War I era will probably find the volume very useful. It won't bog you down in the human drama aspect of the war as other books might. You'll learn the data you need to respond to the short-answer or multiple choice questions you could conceivably encounter on such an exam and should have enough facts at your finger tips to produce an adequate essay for a "blue book" exam.
Others who could find this type of book useful might be those who want to write works of fiction set in this social milieu and who want some age relevant details to bring the story to life. The data will certainly provide you with a rundown of events that can be inserted in the narrative to bring the background to your characters to life. It will also provide you with an easy way to locate and find specific details that other more readable books might inadvertently bury in prose you may not want to read.
The book provides a good discussion of weapons and other technology used by the various participants, of planned strategy, of who declared war on whom, when and why, of who won a specific battle, how and why, of who suffered lost opportunities, how and why, etc. It all breaks down almost into outline form and should make review very easy.
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