Bestselling military historian H. W. Crocker III (The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War,Robert E. Lee on Leadership, etc.) now turns his guns on the epic story of Americaโs involvement in the First World War with his new bookThe Yanks Are Coming: A Military History of the United States in World War I.
2014 marks the centenary of the beginning of that war, and in Crockerโs sweeping, American-focused account, readers will learn:
How George S. Patton, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall (of the Marshall Plan), "Wild Bill" Donovan (future founder of the OSS, the World War II precursor to the CIA), Harry S. Truman, and many other American heroes earned their military spurs in "The Great War"
Why, despite the efforts of the almost absurdly pacifistic administration of Woodrow Wilson, American involvement in the war was inevitable
How the First World War was "the War that Made the Modern World"โsweeping away most of the crowned heads of Europe, redrawing the map of the Middle East, setting the stage for the rise of communism and fascism
Why the First World War marked Americaโs transition from a frontier powerโsome of our World War I generals had actually fought Indiansโto a global superpower, with World War I generals like Douglas MacArthur living to see, and help shape, the nuclear age
"The Young Lions of the War" -- heroes who should not be forgotten, like air ace Eddie Rickenbacker, Sergeant Alvin York (memorably portrayed by Gary Cooper in the Academy Awardโwinning movie Sergeant York), and all four of Theodore Rooseveltโs sons (one of whom was killed)
Stirring, and full of brilliantly told stories of men at war,The Yanks Are Comingwill be the essential book for readers interested in rediscovering Americaโs role in the First World War on its hundredth anniversary.