| Title | The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 |
| Author | Adam Tooze |
| Copyright | 2014 |
| Type | Non-Fiction, History |
| Length | 884 Pages |
| Finished Reading | January 10, 2024 |
| Notable | Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize – History Finalisy for the Kirkus Prize – Nonfiction Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best History |
| Ratings | Personal: 3 Stars Goodreads: 4.2 Stars (1,753 Ratings) Amazon: 4.4 Stars (643 Ratings) |
I love the Oxford History of the United States series which sets out to cover American from Colonial times to the present. While the Civil War book, Battle Cry of Freedom ,may be the post famous, my two favorites – so far – are The Republic for Which It Stands by Richard White and Freedom from Fear by David M. Kennedy. The first covers America’s boom from Reconstruction (after the Civil War) to the 1900’s. The second examines our country from the Great Depression through World War II. The books cover society, culture, politics, industry, basically every facet of life you can imagine. It took me five (!) book reports to cover Freedom from Fear. These histories are a portrait of America’s development with all its shiny parts and flaw. I can’t recommend them highly enough.
But, we are still waiting for the history that bridges these two. The series Wikipedia page reports the book will be written by Bruce Schulman and the title will be Brand Name America: The Birth of the Modern United States: 1896-1929. And I do mean waiting. For years. Over the last four or five years the expected publication date would be “next year”. Now, it just reports “TBA”. Damn.
As a result, I’ve been looking for a history of the time period. Back in 2011 I read Rebirth of a Nation by Jackson Lears. Although it rates 4.3 stars on Amazon, I gave it only 1 star saying it is disjointed and does not delve into any aspect in depth. A few months ago I decided to try The Deluge which I had been considering for a couple of years. This book covers the diplomatic struggles between the Entente (Great Britain, France, Russian [at the beginning] and eventually the United states) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). We read about the thoughts of every major player as the war plunged on.
Early on, President Wilson pushed the idea of “Peace Without Victory”. As we know, it never came about. In the years before the US sent troops to the war, the two blocs could never agree. It reminds me of what Thomas Friedman says about the problems of finding common ground in the Mid East. When one side of the war was doing well, they think “I don’t need to negotiate; I’m going to win.” And when the bloc is not doing well they think “I can’t negotiate, I don’t have any power”. With every nation considering only what was good for them at the moment, instead of looking forward to how the world could operate during peace, any international agreement or cooperation was impossible. There were windows when a better outcome was possible.
If Germany over the winter of 1916-17 had ‘accepted Wilson’s mediation, the whole of American influence in Russian would have been exercised in favor of peace, and not, as events ultimately proved, against’ Germany.
Page 114
So the war dragged on. The United States, considering only our own long-term strategic goals, also failed to bring everyone together. Of course, this failure – along with the oppressive terms put on Germany – led directly to World War II.
Why did the Western Powers lose their grip in such spectacular fashion? When all is said and done, the answer must be sought in the failure of the United States to cooperate with the efforts of the French, British, Germans, and the Japanese to stabilize a viable world economy and to establish new institutions of collective security.
Page 55
This book does a very good job at covering the international negotiations. But I found myself wishing it covered more of what was happening in the American culture and politics. We aren’t shown in any convincing detail the reasons America pulled out of the League of Nations. In addition it doesn’t cover President Wilson’s stroke and the tussle for power in his absence.
So, this is not the book I wanted, but it does a great job at doing what it set out to accomplish. My 3 stars reflect this – and is why I include GoodReads and Amazon ratings to balance my perspective.
