Over There

A well-told narrative of US participation in the most godawful and useless of modern wars. In 1917, on the eve of its entry into WWI, the US was without a single army division. Nineteen months later, the nation’s armed and naval forces had grown to 4 million people, and their deployment had tipped the balance of war in Europe against the Central Powers. Farwell, a vivid chronicler of military forces, generals, and wars (Armies of the Raj: From Mutiny to Independence, 1989, etc.), here describes that extraordinary build-up of American armed might and what it wrought. It’s hard to imagine a…