We've just launched our two-week discussion of Paul Fussell's "The Great War and Modern Memory" at the Dallas Morning News's book club blog. Please join us, even if you haven't read the book. From Dr. Larry Allums's first post:
Is it conceivable to us that this could be—that all the cumulative promise of Enlightenment thinking and innovation since the time of Copernicus and the age of exploration could be overwhelmed by a single war, however big? If Fussell is right, then what was the Modern Age built on that it could be both so blind to the war it brought about and so wide of the mark in its vision of the future? This has always vexed me, and I hope we can give it a little thought since it’s the first premise of Fussell’s book. Have we lost forever the idealistic “innocence” that he says had reached its peak just before WWI?
I know you have thoughts about this. Please come share them. We'll be talking about it for the next two weeks on that blog.
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I ordered this book through Interlibrary Loan when you first mentioned it a month or so ago, knowing that Fussell's book on WWII is a gem.
I'm still waiting for it to arrive. Sigh ...
World War I was a watershed for Western civilization. Read Grave's Goodby to All That, for example.
And it was the fool Wilson who was responsible for the disastrous US intervention. It would have been much better if the Central Powers had won and the US stayed out. US intervention was also a major step toward excessive federal power and political repression.
Bush is repeating Wilson's rhetoric and his mistakes. The Democrats essentially share a Wilsonian view, too, but the "soft," UNICEF postcard version.
I'd like to revisit Fussell's book before commenting on it. In the meantime, since I suppose many Crunchy Con folk are fans of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, let me encourage those interested to read about the wartime experience of these two fantasists.
John Garth, TOLKIEN AND THE GREAT WAR
C. S. Lewis, SURPRISED BY JOY (his autobiography, with material about the war)
K. J. Gilchrist, A MORNING AFTER WAR: C. S. LEWIS AND WWI
It's a litte more complicated than Wilson, who actually wanted to stay out of the War. There had been a long deterioration of relations between the US and Germany that went back to before the Spanish American War which culminated in Teddy Roosevelt sending the navy around the world with the express intent of threatening Germany. It is largely forgetten now, but the US had the first active, albeit small, submarine fleet and when it was being built there was a lot of bluster about sinking German ships.
Early in the war, there was, however, an actual possibility of the US entering the war on the side of Germany over the British blockade of Germany and, in fact, Wilson pointed told Lloyd-George at the Versailles conference that if Britain ever repeated that the US would go to war against Britain and sweep the British from the seas.
In the end, the decision to go to war against Germany probably came from the fact that there were more voters who spoke English than spoke German.
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