redrobinbookreviews

The Last Days of Innocence: America at War, 1917-1918   Meirion Harries and Susie Harries
Far too much detail on all the tiny parts of the military buildup, excruciating. Lifeless prose that is really just an accretion of lists, the authors love nothing more than a list, the longer the better. Descriptions of the WW I battles are somewhat better, but also more useless detail. No real social, intellectual, or cultural history. I think they over-emphasized the centralization of government power, as demonstrated by the 20s and early 30s. After nearly 500 pages, don’t really feel like I have an understanding of the U.S. in these two momentous years. Too bad.