Buying Options

Print List Price:	$23.99
Kindle Price:	$15.99 Save $8.00 (33%)
Sold by:	Hachette Book Group Price set by seller.

Promotions apply when you purchase

Deliver to your Kindle Library

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Enter a promotion code or Gift Card

Share <Embed>

The Illusion Of Victory: America In World War I by [Thomas Fleming]

Follow the Author

Thomas Fleming

The Illusion Of Victory: America In World War I Kindle Edition

by Thomas Fleming (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

79 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$15.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$20.62

$22.42

$20.62

Paperback

"Please retry"

$21.99

$16.99

$3.99

The political history of the American experience in World War I is a story of conflict and bungled intentions that begins in an era dedicated to progressive social reform and ends in the Red Scare and Prohibition. Thomas Fleming tells this story through the complex figure of Woodrow Wilson, the contradictory president who wept after declaring war, devastated because he knew it would destroy the tolerance of the American people, but who then suppressed freedom of speech and used propaganda to excite America into a Hun-hating mob. This is tragic history: inexperienced American military leaders drove their troops into gruesome slaughters; progressive politics were put on hold in America; an idealistic president's dreams were crushed because of his own negligence. Wilson's inability to convince Congress to ratify U.S. membership in the League of Nations was one of the most poignant failures in the history of the American presidency, but even more heartrending were Wilson's concessions to his bitter allies in the Treaty of Versailles. In exchange for Allied support of the League of Nations, he allowed an unfair peace treaty to be signed, a treaty that played no small role in the rise of National Socialism and the outbreak of World War II. Thomas Fleming has once again created a masterpiece of narrative American history. This incomparable portrait shows how Wilson sacrificed his noble vision to megalomania and single-mindedness, while paying homage to him as a visionary whose honorable spirit continues to influence Western politics.

Print length

573 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Basic Books
Publication date

August 5, 2008
File size

2568 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Thomas Fleming
99
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $16.99
Thomas Fleming
206
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $2.99
Thomas Fleming
170
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Thomas Fleming
26
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Thomas Fleming
127
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $13.99
Thomas Fleming
48
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $18.99

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In 1919 Woodrow Wilson came to Versailles almost universally praised as the embodiment of the hopes of the world for a more peaceful future. Nine decades later, there is a general consensus that his idealism and rigidity led to disasters at the peace conference and during the immediate postwar period. Historian Fleming presents what some may regard as a hatchet job. He portrays Wilson, sometimes unfairly, as vain, bigoted, intolerant, and quite willing to use governmental power to repress even mild dissension. Yet, if Fleming's personal attacks are over the top, his analyses of the consequences of Wilson's decisions are on the mark. To obtain French and British acceptance of the League of Nations, Wilson accepted their blatantly unjust punitive measures against Germany. Then, his refusal to compromise doomed acceptance of the League of Nations in the U.S. Senate. His "war to end all wars" led directly to an even more horrible conflagration 20 years later. This is a generally credible indictment of a man whose good intentions failed to deal with reality. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

"A provocative read.... [Fleming's] analysis of the consequences of Wilson's decisions are on the mark." --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00AFYVIDO
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; Export Ed edition (August 5, 2008)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 5, 2008
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2568 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 573 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0465024696

Best Sellers Rank: #1,124,043 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #930 in World War I History (Kindle Store)
- #2,644 in World War I History (Books)
- #5,805 in World History (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
79 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Thomas Fleming

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

"How do you write a book?" 24 year old Thomas Fleming asked bestselling writer Fulton Oursler in 1951. "Write four pages a day," Oursler said. "Every day except Sunday. Whether you feel like it or not. Inspiration consists of putting the seat of your pants on the chair at your desk." Fleming has followed this advice to good effect. His latest effort, "The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers," is his 50th published book. Twenty three of them have been novels. He is the only writer in the history of the Book of the Month Club to have main selections in fiction and in nonfiction. Many have won prizes. Recently he received the Burack Prize from Boston University for lifetime achievement. In nonfiction he has specialized in the American Revolution. He sees Intimate Lives as a perfect combination of his double talent as a novelist and historian. "Novelists focus on the imtimate side of life. This is the first time anyone has looked at the intimate side of the lives of these famous Americans, with an historian's eyes." Fleming was born in Jersey City, the son of a powerful local politician. He has had a lifetime interest in American politics. He also wrote a history of West Point which the New York Times called "the best...ever written." Military history is another strong interest. He lives in New York with his wife, Alice Fleming, who is a gifted writer of books for young readers.

Customer reviews

5 star		73%
4 star		18%
3 star		3%
2 star		1%
1 star		5%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Gregory Jablynski

Fascinating look at America in the Great War.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

I must first admit that I share a lot of the author's views on US involvement in WWI. That being said this is a fascinating book which will be a real eye opener to many readers, especially those with just a superficial knowledge of the subject. I picked up a lot of new (to me) information. The book held my interest and was a pleasure to read. While military action is part of the book, the key focus is on Wilson and politics. An absolute must read for anyone interested in US history.

Helpful

Andrew S. Rogers

Excellent, insightful, look at the dawn of the modern world

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2003

Verified Purchase

This is a fascinating, entertaining, and truly eye-opening book. Like Thomas Fleming's earler The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II , "The Illusion of Victory" is not only a great survey of events that shaped the modern world, but also a much-needed puncturing of one of the twentieth century's most over-inflated reputations (in the former case, FDR's, in this one Woodrow Wilson's) and a very timely reminder of how war overthrows all aims. Most of all, though, this is just extremely well-written history. It is definitely worth a read.

Today, more than three-quarters of a century after the end of the first world war, the myths of that conflict, of America's place in it, and Woodrow Wilson's role in keeping us out, and getting us in, are more pervasive than ever. Fleming reveals not only what a failure Wilson truly was, but how the idealism for which he is so celebrated today was not only sacrificed on the altar of international politicking and hatred, but was poisoned even by the president's own messiah complex and uncompromising partisanship. Fleming paints Wilson as a truly unpleasant figure. And while I can imagine that many readers might consider this an overly negative portrayal -- and accuse Fleming of abandoning the serene and godlike objectivity so many historians maintain (or simulate) -- Fleming has the facts to back up his conclusions. The energy with which Thomas Fleming gores sacred cows like Wilson and FDR is one of his more distinctive characteristics, and it's one I, for my part, particularly value.

As I said, there are many especially timely lessons contained in this book. One of the most striking concerns the remarkably vicious campaign against anti-war, or even insufficiently pro-war, elements in the United States, led by the government itself and its partisans. Whatever your opinions on the contemporary "USA PATRIOT Act," you'll have to admit that John Ashcroft has not even remotely approached the reign of terror carried out in the U.S. during world war one in the name of "100 percent Americanism." This discovery is just one of the many unsettling things readers may learn for the first time between these covers.

Another concerns the equally vicious propaganda campaign against Germany, begun in the U.S. by the British and later enthusiastically adopted by the U.S. government. As other observers have argued, enciting hatred seems to be essential to carrying out the war aims of mass democracies. It's not enough to say we disagree with an opposing government's policies; the enemy -- citizens as well as governments -- have to be painted as subhuman, tarred with accusations of unimaginable atrocities, and condemned to nothing less than absolute, crushing defeat. Fleming does an excellent job showing how French, British, and even American leaders participated in the stirring-up of this blood-hatred of the Germans, and incited the American people to give in to it as well. The corollary of this, of course, is that such hatred can't turn on a dime, and it poisoned attempts to craft a peace treaty that solved legitimate grievances and created a new and better world. Fleming reveals, with sometimes painful clarity, how hatred fueled the creation of a Versailles Treaty designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily, and politically for generations to come. We all know the monsters that this created.

On the whole, I find it hard to recommend this title *too* enthusiastically. I truly enjoyed the time I spent reading it, regretted having to put it down, and looked forward to when I'd be able to dive in again. It's hard to ask more from a book than that, and when a title is not only entertaining and educational, but challengingly "revisionist" and eye-opening too ... well, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

111 people found this helpful

Helpful

Crosslands

Outstanding History

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 17, 2009

Verified Purchase

Mr. Fleming has written a very informative, readable, and witty book on the American experience during World War I. Mr. Fleming's book does not only contain a vast amount of factual material but presents this material about a very tragic period in a manner that is both readable and entertaining.

Mr. Fleming doe not hesitate to gore sacred cows, particularly of the Allied hagliographies. He names Douglas Haig as one of the worst generals in history. He demolishes Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Poincare. He exposes Summerhill for his leading more young Americans to their death just before the armistance. Then there is Lord Northcliffe, aka Alfred Harmsworth, who owned a lot of the bigger newspapers in Great Britain and exposed his readers to mounds of often fallacious hate propaganda.

Mr. Fleming takes a quite critical look at President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson had his ideals. But he was both arrogant and often removed from reality. He permitted great violations of civil liberties in America during the war period. His fanatical devotion to the League of Nations caused him to allow Lloyd George and Clemenceau to destroy any semblence of a just peace based on the Fourteen Points.

Mr. Fleming demonstrates that entering World War I was a colossal mistake. He narrates the opposing Senators as demonstrating that many other countries including Brazil were quite willing to live with the German U boat blockade. He exposes the ship Lustiana, whose sinking was a prime argument of the warmongers, was a munitions ship as much as a passenger ship. He also demonstrates Great Britain was also violated freedom of the seas by blockading Germany causing starvation in the country.

Also exposed is the food blockade of Germany after the signing of the armistance. Thus starvation continued in Germany. The greatest success of the blockade was to recruit kids who went hungry and helplessly saw their families starve as SS officers.

Of course Imperial Germany was far from perfect too. But this war was a vast waste and and devasting in its effects. The war enabled such monsters as Lenin, Hitler, and Stalin to rise. Again, U.S. entry was a big mistake.

If there was any hero in this period it was Robert La Follette, who saw through the nationalist rot and maintained human decency while others around descended to madness and pagan tribal rage. Fleming's book provides an important warning about ultra nationalism and state worship. This book should be read by all Americans.

One final quote (p. 39): "James Heflin of Alabama told Kitchen [Democratic House leader who voted against the war] that he should have resigned as house leader before he made such a statement - and then resigned his seat. John Lawson Burnett of Alabama said that Heflin ought to prove his patriotism first by enlisting in the army as a private."

23 people found this helpful

Helpful