The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America

by Michael S. Neiberg

Overview

When war broke out in Europe in August of 1914, it seemed, to observers in the United States, the height of madness. The Old World and its empires were tearing each other apart, and while most Americans blamed the Germans, pitied the Belgians, and felt kinship with the Allies, they wanted no part in the carnage. Two years into war President Woodrow Wilson won re-election by pledging to keep out of the conflict. Yet by the spring of 1917-by which point millions had been killed for little apparent gain or purpose-the fervor to head ?Over There? swept the country. America wanted in. The Path to War shows us how that happened. Entry into the war resulted from lengthy debate and soul-searching about national identity, as so-called ?hyphenated citizens? of Irish and German heritage wrestled with what it meant to be American. Many hoped to keep to the moral high ground, condemning German aggression while withholding from the Allies active support, offering to mediate between the belligerents while keeping clear. Others, including the immensely popular former president Theodore Roosevelt, were convinced that war offered the country the only way to assume its rightful place in world affairs. Neiberg follows American reaction to such events as the sinking of the Lusitania, German terrorism, and the incriminating Zimmermann telegram, shedding light on the dilemmas and crises the country faced as it moved from ambivalence to belligerence. As we approach the centenary of the war, the effects of the pivot from peace to war still resonate, as Michael Neiberg's compelling book makes clear. The war transformed the United States into a financial powerhouse and global player, despite the reassertion of isolationism in the years that followed. Examining the social, political, and financial forces at work as well as the role of public opinion and popular culture, The Path to War offers both a compelling narrative and the inescapable conclusion that World War One was no parenthetical exception in the American story but a moment of national self-determination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190464981
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	441,379
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Michael S. Neiberg is the inaugural Chair of War Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College. His published work specializes on the First and Second World Wars, notably the American and French experiences. He is the author of many books, including Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I and Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe. He is currently based in Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Over There Chapter One: A Game of Kings Chapter Two: Images of the Warring Countries Chapter Three: Americans Respond to the War Chapter Four: The Lusitania Chapter Five: Rising Tensions and Spy Scandals Chapter Six: Mexico, Germany, and the Global Threat Chapter Seven: The Sussex Pledge and the Continental Plan Chapter Eight: Submarine Warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram Conclusion: To War

Editorial Reviews

"Considering the importance of America's response to the challenges presented by the First World War, there is-not surprisingly-an extensive body of literature on the American experience in the years leading up to the declaration of war in April 1917. Rarely, if ever, has this story been told as well as in Michael S. Neiberg's The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America [A] study that is eminently readable, impressively researched, and remarkably thorough in its treatment of the various issues and challenges Americans wrestled with as they found it increasingly difficult, and then finally impossible, to believe the nation's interests would be best served by remaining out of the war."—Ethan S. Rafuse, Army History

"Michael Neiberg's The Path to War traces the U.S.'s journey from detached observer to fully-committed participant in the First World War. Neiberg does this with great skill and clarity. The Path to War will become essential reading for those interested in the First World War and how it shaped the USA. It makes an invaluable contribution to a pivotal event in U.S. history."—Glyn Harper, Professor of War Studies, Massey University, New Zealand

"Michael Neiberg has established a deserved reputation as one of the premier US-based historians of World War I, and his latest book does not disappoint. Following on from The Dance of the Furies, his magisterial book on European peoples in 1914, The Path to War gives a challenging and intellectually exciting account of how and why America and its people went to war three years later."—Gary Sheffield PhD, University of Wolverhampton, UK

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
Readers might be confused by the subtitle of this book from Neiberg (history, U.S. Army War Coll., PA; Dance of the Furies), as the author doesn't explore how World War I shaped U.S. development. Rather, he focuses on proving that American motivation for entering the war was complex and nuanced. Many traditional histories posit the view that the United States was duped into supporting the war through a combination of propaganda, economic self-interest, and President Woodrow Wilson's idealism. Neiberg explores two neglected aspects. First, Americans believed Germany presented an existential threat in the wake of incidents such as the Zimmerman telegram. Second, people from diverse ethnic backgrounds wanted to prove that their primary identity was with the United States and felt that getting behind the effort was a way to express their patriotism. Neiberg believes Americans made a rational choice to fight Germany. VERDICT This book provides a thought-provoking contrast to Richard Gamble's The War for Righteousness, which details Wilson's idealism as the cause for America's entrance into the war and Jeanette Keith's Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight, which describes the lack of support for the war, at least in the rural South.—Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL

Library Journal

2016-07-19
A fresh look at America’s reluctance to enter World War I as a mass consensus rather than any single faulty decision by President Woodrow Wilson.Neiberg (War Studies/United States Army War Coll.; Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe, 2015, etc.) effectively shows how America went from embracing neutrality when World War I ignited in August 1914 (as represented by the popular song “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier”) to accepting its new world role by early 1917 (epitomized by George M. Cohan’s “Over There”). The author admirably sticks to the contemporary record via periodicals, diaries, and speeches to allow the voices of the agents to emerge—politicians, captains of business, immigrants of the warring nations, and regular folk. Americans were outraged by the brutality of the war in Europe, mystified and disgusted by the bellicosity of Germany (when so many immigrants to America were German, and German kultur was valued highly), and increasingly cognizant of the need to accept moral responsibility to help the war’s victims. “Wilson had misread the mood of his country regarding the war,” writes the author, because many people did question the rightness of America’s isolationism as imperiling their future. While a pro-Allied bias was evident from the start of the war (by more educated, old-stock Protestant families), many did not sympathize—e.g., Irish-Americans, who denounced the violent British reprisals against the Easter Rising as being similar to German methods; and African-Americans, who were keenly aware of Belgium’s atrocities against the Congolese in Africa. Economic interest, however, ruled the day; the sinking of the Lusitania and, later, the Zimmermann telegram shook public opinion violently, though it was Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare that helped create the inevitable casus belli. A valiant attempt to dispel “America’s collective amnesia over the First World War.

Kirkus Reviews