Beyond 1917

de Thomas W. Zeiler, David K. Ekbladh, Benjamin C. Montoya

"A massively destructive and transformative event, the First World War left in its wake many legacies. Beyond 1917 explores both the consequences of the war for the United States (and the world) and American influence on shaping the legacies of the conflict in the decades after US entry in 1917. From the fields, seas, and airspace of battle, we live today with the consequences of the Great War's poison gas, post-traumatic stress disorder, and technological inventions such as air bombardment of civilians, submarine and tank warfare, and modern surgical techniques. Conscription, pacifism, humanitarian campaigns, and socialist movements emerged from the war to shape politics within countries for decades to come. Governments learned the value of propaganda, both in print and in film. Society changed: women were emancipated in some countries and citizenship was altered in many places, while aristocracy and monarchies went into decline.^ European empires were transformed and in some cases destroyed; in the Middle East, the change was enormous, beginning with the final collapse of Ottoman hegemony in the region. Fascism and communism, mass migration, independence, militarism, an influenza epidemic, the rise of Wall Street and American economic power, a slowdown in the process of globalization, and the pursuit of world peace by an organization based on collective security numbered among the most significant and lasting legacies of this conflict. Beyond 1917 explores how and why the war has become an integral milepost for human history, reflects the importance of the conflict, the forces that led to it, and the forces it unleashed. On the occasion of the centennial commemorations, an international group of scholars considers the long-term policy, political, social, economic, and cultural consequences of the war for the United States itself and for the world.^ In addition to interpretive essays, the volume provides a comprehensive bibliography and timeline of events."-- "Beyond 1917: The United States and the Global Legacies of the Great War, which explores how and why the First World War has become an integral milepost for human history, reflects the importance of the conflict, the forces that led to it, and the forces it let loose. These legacies have been a shifting set of lessons, interpretations, and costs left by an unparalleled global war that generations have now grappled with for decades. How we remember and interpret the war remains one of its great legacies. Yet legacies are not historically remote things; they were felt from the moment the conflict began and have shifted and been reinterpreted ever since. There is no one legacy of the First World War, of course, but an unstable set of lessons, interpretations, perceptions, and costs left by the conflict that are addressed in these essays. Beyond 1917 provides a novel angle: that of the endgame, the consequences, the impact of the war - both immediately, medium-term (in the following few decades after its conclusion), and into recent times. This international group of scholars demonstrates the reach of the legacies of the First World War, both in and on history. Despite the nation's rather ambivalent memory of the conflict, the United States in the world serves as the conceptual hub for what follows in this volume. This was done with the understanding that there are myriad ways exploring what the conflict wrought around the globe and across time. For historians, critical themes, even the structure of patterns of inquiry in the broader scholarship of international and global history, are not free from the pull of the memory of Great War"--