World War I Collection Spotlight - American Experience

"Immediately after the armistice was signed in November, 1918, an American journalist asked Paul von Hindenburg who won the war against Germany. He was the chief of the German General Staff, co-architect with Erich Ludendorff of Germany's Eastern Front victories and its nearly war-winning Western Front offensives, and he did not hesitate in his answer. "The American infantry," he said. He made it even more specific, telling the reporter that the final...

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants-never more so than in 1917 when the nation entered the First World War. Of the 2.5 million soldiers who fought with U.S. armed forces in the trenches of France and Belgium, some half a million-nearly one out of every five men-were immigrants. In The Long Way Home, David Laskin, author of the prizewinning history The Children's Blizzard, tells the stories of twelve of these immigrant heroes....

At 8:43 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, October 6, 1918, HMS Kashmir rammed HMS Otranto off Islay, Scotland. Many Were Held by the Sea: The Tragic Sinking of HMS Otranto, tells the story of what happened during that voyage--mostly from the perspective of the American soldiers--and builds to the disastrous conclusion. --from publisher description

"It was one of the most heroic events in American military history. Here is the larger-than-life story of World War I's "Lost Battalion" and the men who survived the ordeal, triumphed in battle, and fought the demons that lingered. In the first week of October 1918, six hundred men attacked into Europe's forbidding Argonne Forest. Against all odds, they surged through enemy lines--alone. They were soon surrounded and besieged. As they ran out of ammunition,...

"The heroic American contribution to World War I is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, and yet is largely overlooked by history. In Sons of Freedom, historian Geoffrey Wawro presents the dramatic narrative of the courageous American troops who took up arms in a conflict 4,000 miles across the Atlantic, and in doing so ensured the Allies' victory. Historians have long dismissed the American war effort as too little too late: a delayed...

Celebrated military historian and bestselling author Patrick O'Donnell illuminates the saga behind the creation of the Tomb itself and recreates the moving ceremony during which it was consecrated and the eight Body Bearers, and the sergeant who had chosen the one body to be interred, solemnly united. Brilliantly researched, vividly told, The Unknowns is a timeless tale of heeding the calls of duty and brotherhood, and humanizes the most consequential...

A personal and penetrating biography of our 28th president by Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg.

From the Publisher: Fought far from home, World War I was nonetheless a stirring American adventure. The achievements of the United States during that war, often underrated by military historians, were in fact remarkable, and they turned the tide of the conflict. So says John S.D. Eisenhower, one of today's most acclaimed military historians, in his sweeping history of the Great War and the men who won it: the Yanks of the American Expeditionary Force....