Beyond 1917 The United States and the Global Legacies of the Great War

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.

Thomas W. Zeiler is Professor of History and Director of the Program in International Affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the author of Annihilation: A Global Military History of World War II, among other titles. He is the former Editor of Diplomatic History and President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).

David K. Ekbladh is Associate Professor of History and Core Faculty in International Relations at Tufts University. He is the author of The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order.

Benjamin C. Montoya is a Lecturer in History and International Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction: Legacies- David K. Ekbladh
Timeline of World War I and Its Legacies- Benjamin C. Montoya

Part 1: Historians: Writing, Legacies, Memories
Ch. 1 The Historiographic Impact of the Great War- Akira Iriye
Ch. 2 The War as History: Writing the Economic and Social History of the First World War-Katharina Rietzler
Ch. 3. The World War and American Memory-John Milton Cooper, Jr.

Part 2: The United States: A Society Intervenes
Ch. 4 Blinking Eyes Began to Open: Legacies from America's Road to the Great War, 1914-1917-Michael S. Neiberg
Ch. 5 Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Legacy of World War I-Michael Adas
Ch. 6 Legacies for Citizenship: Pinpointing Americans during and after World War I-Christopher Capozzola
Ch. 7 Taming Total War: Great War Era American Humanitarianism and Its Legacies- Julia Irwin
Ch. 8 To Make the World Saved: American Religion and the Great War-Andrew Preston

Part 3: America in the World: Empire, Revolution, and Power
Ch. 9 The Geopolitics of Revolution-Lloyd C. Gardner
Ch. 10 From Sideshow to Center State: Legacies of the Great War (and Peace?) in the Middle East-Matthew Jacobs
Ch. 11 The Great War as a Global War: Imperial Conflict and the Reconfiguration of World Order, 1911-1923-Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela
Ch. 12 The Great War, Wilsonianism, and Challenges to U.S. Empire- Emily S. Rosenberg
Ch. 13 War-Depression-War: The Fatal Sequence in a Global Perspective- Dietmar Rothermund
Ch. 14 World War I, the Rise of Hitler, and the Legacy of Dictatorship- Klaus Schwabe
Ch. 15 International Law and World War I: A Pivotal Turn- Hatsue Shinohara

Bibliography- Benjamin C. Montoya