Peace and Free

Peace and Freedom Essay General accounts that place the American combat experience in the broader context of the 1918 campaign can be found in literature. Authors provide sound overviews of the AEFs European combat experience. Accounts of specific battles contain an excellent general description of the Marine combat experience on the Western Front. Perhaps influenced by recent trends in military history, many authors have attempted to come to grips with the wars impact on the individual soldier. Authors look at the Armys treatment of its black soldiers and of those soldiers reactions. There are also more detailed works on the black experience. They provide a fine general account of the African-American experience in the U. S. military. At the same time historians focused on the very important role women played at home. In The Women and the Warriors, Carrie Foster looks at the early history of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom. He finds that its experience during the World War I greatly shaped its view of the world and the strategies it pursued during this period. The important scholarship on women during the war challenges the traditional interpretation of the war as, on the whole, a liberating experience for women. For historians are important local studies, focusing on official policy toward women and workers in general. There is also the psychosocial impact of the war on gender relations. What happens when the men come home is described by historians. Historians investigated also the history of industrial workers. They focused on the militarization of labor and on the relations among union leaders, capitalists, and military authorities. Historians covered labyrinthine administrative arrangements that economic mobilization engendered and trade union organization. Recent scholarship on the working class in wartime features a great many local studies. The history of daily life among civilians during the World War I has been investigated chiefly via local case studies. Many historians propose that the experience of the war on the home front often came down to â€Å"steel and turnips†Ã¢â‚¬â€ever-increasing demands for work and â€Å"efficiency, † and less and less to eat in the bargain. It almost goes without doubt that a disproportionate number of those undergoing these experiences were women and children. Some writers focus on the ideological impact of war work for the womens movement and consider the related issue of â€Å"pronatalism† as an element of wartime mentality. As to the children for whom working women continued to care, historians have studied the day-to-day life of those still in school and considered youth movements within the middle class. One social group of importance to both women and children was doctors. The relationship of both politicians and soldiers with the press has drawn a number of scholars. They have concentrated upon the issue of control and censorship touching on both censorship and ownership. The press was naturally an instrument for propaganda. The impact of theatre, photography, the infant cinema and, especially, the pioneering wartime film has been the subject of detailed consideration. Today the World War I is in modern memory as an incredible experience of our parents and grandparents. Its places of battles are partially preserved. Its equipment and accoutrements exhibited in museums. A balanced account of the entire period is captured in excellent historical works that always will be read with curiosity and amazement, as well as a growing understanding. References Coffman, Edward M. (1968). The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I. New York: Oxford. Foster, Carrie A. (1995). The Women and the Warriors: The U. S. Section of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915-1946. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Kreidberg, Marvin A., and Merton G. Henry. (1955). History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775-1945. Washington, DC: Department of the Army. Perret, Geoffrey. (1989). A Country Made by War: From Revolution to Vietnam—The Story of Americas Rise to Power. New York: Random House. Plaschka, Richard Georg, Horst Haselsteiner, and Arnold Suppan. (1974). Innere Front: Militarassistenz, Widerstand und Umsturz in der Donaumonarchie, Vienna. Weigley, Russell F. (1973). The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. New York: Macmillan.