Book Review: Illusion of Victory

OK. It's not fair to call this a book review since I'm only on chapter two, but I'm having such a great time reading this, I desperately need to share. This book is fantastic. It's a history of America in World War I. I'm enjoying reading it on so many levels. First off, it's fantastic history. I'm getting great information on the America's lead-up to the War. Second, it's fantastic history. Lots of little bits & pieces of information, like when one Senator charged at another with a gun in an attempt to stop a filibuster (yeah, let Teddy the Tick do it the old fashioned way) and was stopped by another senator who pulled a metal bar out of his pocket. And people complain about how dirty politics are today. I've been reading excerpts to the geek wife as I hit the good parts. It's great. I can't recommend it enough. I'll have to publish another post on it after I'm done. I'm especially interested to see if he covers Archangel and our intrusion into the Russian civil war. It's easy to read and flows quite well. Best of all, the author, Thomas Fleming, has a very complete set of foot notes with other books, and primary sources of course, that look awfully interesting. The blurbs on the back seem to suggest this is a revision of the history of Wilson and America, but it reads like a re-illumination of that history, especially with so much supporting documentation around the dissulusionment of so many after the war.

For those that aren't aware of it, WWI, why it was fought, how it was fought, and how it was settled (or not) caused most of the strife of the twentieth century; WWII of course, probably the '29 crash, success of the Soviet revolt & establishment of the Soviet Union, and the partition of the Middle East including the creation, from whole cloth, of countries like Iraq.

I think we linked to article that turned me on to this book in a previous post, but just in case: History News Network (lots of good, and bad, stuff there).

Get this book. Read this book. My sincere thanks to Nyarlathotep for giving it to me on my birthday. For our readers that might have missed it, you can always go here to get me something: Wish List

Better still, send books to Nyarlathotep or myself and we'll right up reviews.