Skip to main content

Please write a précis of the book America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience by Robert H. Zieger.

This book is about the American experience during World War I, which, Zieger writes, "reflected the diverse strands of the progressivism that dominated public discourse during the first two decades of the century" (page 2). Progressives viewed the war as a way to promote what the author calls "social action" (page 2), including shoring up traditional social values, citizenship, and patriotism.


However, the war's conclusion frustrated the desires of Progressives, as it was marked by the government's attempt to quell dissent and the restriction of immigration. In addition, the war's movement to promote innovative labor relations and social welfare programs also ended in 1918, and race relations worsened after the war. Women, who received the right to vote shortly after the war and who carried on war-time work, did not generally advance their war-time gains following the war.


The book traces the development of American attitudes towards the war, from a state of ambivalence and a sense that the war was a European problem, to American entanglement in the war. He also examines the ways in which the government mobilized its military and economy to fight the war. 


In addition, what the author calls the "National Security State," which he defines as the government's use of coercion to achieve military goals, was born during the war. The author also considers the contradictions of the war, including its movement to assimilate many different types of Americans from different backgrounds into the army, while, at the same time, the military continued to practice racism.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.