Publisher Description
The “stirring,” definitive history of America’s decisive role in winning World War I (Wall Street Journal).
The American contribution to World War I is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, and yet it has all but vanished from view. Historians have dismissed the American war effort as largely economic and symbolic. But as Geoffrey Wawro shows in Sons of Freedom, the French and British were on the verge of collapse in 1918, and would have lost the war without the Doughboys. Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, described the Allied victory as a “miracle” — but it was a distinctly American miracle.
In Sons of Freedom, prize-winning historian Geoffrey Wawro weaves together in thrilling detail the battles, strategic deliberations, and dreadful human cost of the American war effort. A major revision of the history of World War I, Sons of Freedom resurrects the brave heroes who saved the Allies, defeated Germany, and established the United States as the greatest of the great powers.
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In this bold and bracing new history, Geoffrey Wawro argues that the American intervention in WWI was decisive, and that the Allies would not have won the war without it. What is more, the critical American contribution was not, as we are usually told, financial; nor even material or technological, as was the case in World War II. Rather, it was about raw infantry manpower. Surprising the Germans, American doughboys stormed heavily fortified German positions with little more than rifles, grenades, trench mortars, and bayonets, fueled by kill-or-be-killed grit and courage under fire. With Sons of Freedom, Wawro has rewritten the history of the Allied victory in 1918, bringing the last months of the war to gory, gas-choked and blood-soaked life, along with the forgotten Americans–of all races–who fought, bled, suffered and died to win it.
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Sean McMeekin, author of July 1914: Countdown to WarÂ
