over here

Over Here!
$7.99
The Sherman Brothers in a breakaway from their family musicals for Disney and others, have come up with a Broadway score like no other, with all the tunefulness of their other scores wrapped up in a spectacular 1940's big band sound. Upbeat,witty, clever,evocative, OVER HERE! is about as good as you get and homage to the fact that nothing beats the work of great songwriters. The now stellar cast on this recording sees the likes of John Travolta and Samuel E Wright mixing it with the two surviving Andrews' Sisters of the time. For every reason - an essential purchase, even if the CD mix isn't as good as that which appeared on the original LP.

Over Here
$1.99

Over Here
$18.00
SKITCH'S SISTER HELEN INTRODUCED ME TO MY WIFE OF 42 YEARS ON GOVERNORS ISLAND NY WHERE HIS FATHER, GENERAL J F R SEIT WAS IN COMMAND. CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT IF AMAZON CAN EVER GET IT TO ME!!!

Over Here: The First World War and American Society
$19.95
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American military affairs. It is hard to imagine any historian speaking about the "birth" of the "modern age" without acknowledging the fact that the Great War was its "midwife." This becomes apparent when examining the history of how America was transformed by the Great War. In David M. Kennedy's book Over Here: The First World War and American Society, he conducted a comprehensive study of primary and secondary source material for his "social history" account of America's involvement in the war. Kennedy astutely theorized that the Great War served as a catalyst of change in American culture as well as in its socio-economic and political institutions. Kennedy expertly defended his thesis in examining such topics as President Woodrow Wilson's economic mobilization planning and diplomatic policies, the war's effect on several facets of society including civil liberties, organized labor, blacks, women, liberal progressives, political radicals, and political party politics.

Kennedy also made wide use of the diaries and literature of America's "doughboys" to express their reactions to the "crucible" of war. An American soldier in the battle of Saint-Mihiel, Eugene Kennedy, poignantly recorded in his diary the sense of helplessness soldiers often feel in war when he wrote how he was, "Stumbling through dark, dripping woods, guided only by his hand on the pack of the man ahead" (193). In addition, Kennedy highlighted the lasting effects on how American society was ultimately changed by the "Great War" experience by first causing America to take a preeminent role on the world stage, and then choosing to become isolationist while the ink was still wet on the treaty of Versailles.

Kennedy devoted a portion of his book to explaining one of the most interesting and important political shifts that took place in America. Wilson and other like-minded progressives held political sway over the direction of the country until America's entry into the war. Ironically, soon after Wilson ultimately decided to ask congress for a war resolution, Wilson, in his role of commander-in-chief, found it necessary to turn his back on much of his progressive agenda in order to prosecute the war efficiently. For example, the Wilson administration, unlike no other in American history, enlisted the help of progressive men like the eminent philosopher John Dewey, and also aggressively used propaganda in schools, German ethnic neighborhoods, and in union halls, in a very successful attempt to get Americans, who for over a century had been fiercely isolationist, to support the war. Wilson reversed his progressive policy of expanding civil liberties when he used the Espionage Act of June 5, 1917, "...to break the backs of groups dependent on the mails to circulate news among their members, including ethnic communities, radical labor organizations, and minority political parties" (26). Understanding how important it was to efficiently recruit, draft, train, equip, and transport over two million men for war, Wilson created an "alphabet soup" of new government agencies to "efficiently" mobilize the nation for war, such as the War Industries Board, (WIB). Kennedy provided ample proof that by nature, the WIB became a very pro-business entity. It was used to coordinate all of the means of America's production in order to equip America and the Allies with the weapons necessary to fight. Thus, Kennedy noted that all of the progressive reforms and advances in social, economic, and political policies that Wilson and others so fervently fought to gain since the turn of the century, were essentially reversed by war's end.

Observing the transformation of European political and social structures that a protracted war would bring, president Woodrow Wilson, who had been a historian most of his professional life, wrote to a friend, "`Every reform we have won,' Wilson had said as early as 1914, `will be lost if we go into this war'" (11). Kennedy's book proved that Wilson's prediction was right. Thus, Kennedy's book will provide the reader with a better understanding for the socio-economic and political changes that took place during and immediately following the Great War, which ultimately helped to shape American society and bring about the "modern age."

Recommended reading for anyone interested in military history, and American history.