The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America by Michael S. Neiberg ISBN: 0190464968
Published by Oxford University Press on October 3, 2016
Genres: Strategic Studies
Pages: 272
Winner of the 2016 Tomlinson Prize Award
Neiberg takes a bottom-up approach toward understanding why America finally associated itself with the Entente in the fight against Germany. His major thesis is that Americans were way ahead of the government, and especially President Woodrow Wilson, in understanding that we had to be part of the war “to save civilization” and suppress Germany’s aggressive ambitions.
Memoirs, newspaper columns, magazine articles, private and public letters, and the speeches of Preparedness advocates show us the organic change taking place from 1914 to 1917 in our so-called isolationist population, and how the pressure from ordinary people, and his own advisers, dragged Wilson to a place he did not want to go. The chapter titled “Awaiting the Overt Act” is especially suspenseful, even if you know what’s coming next.
Neiberg’s refreshing viewpoint emphasizing the idealism, thoughtfulness, and good sense of the American public is certainly persuasive. Once again, his natural writing style makes this book an enjoyable as well as informative endeavor that I can recommend without hesitation.
Abridged from review by Jolie Velazquez in RoadstotheGreatWar-ww1.blogspot.com/
[Army Times described it “…eminently readable, impressively researched, and remarkably thorough…”—Ed.]
