Over There

When the United States finally declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, the British and French armies were at a point of total exhaustion, and within two weeks the French troops had mutinied, leaving the Western Front practically undefended. In the same month, Lenin arrived in Moscow on the heels of the Russian Revolution, and vowed to make peace with Germany. Our last-minute intervention in this European war would save the Allies in their hour of need and change forever the way Americans saw their country and the world. Byron Farwell's vivid and informed narrative covers all phases of the American effort, from the home front, where the war introduced rapid technical and social changes that were difficult to absorb, to the desperate encounters in the front lines of Belleau Wood and the St. Mihiel salient, where American troops proved their valor and altered the course of the war. With its fresh look at the Great War, this book paints a memorable picture of the intense national experience whereby America came of age in the twentieth century.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.