I went from feeling bad about blocking The Atlantic to putting the book on my wishlist to looking up unemployment statistics from 1921 to shaking my head, brow furrowed. Who writes this shit? "True, mustard gas was a much less pleasant experience than the Bataan death march..." This is not a period of history I feel I have any mastery of, but it's not one I feel completely in the dark about. The truth - as I understand it - is hidden in amongst the scattershot randomness of it all. Here, lemme edit: Okay, let's turn that sentence into something straightforward... After World War I, Europe suffered largely as a result of war bond repayment. After World War II, Europe recovered largely as a result of American aid. See, that's the thing people fuck up about Wilson: he saw WWI as a distinctly European conflict with distinctly European causes. He also advised Truman after VE day: "You can have peace or you can have vengeance. You can't have both." That's why the US pushed so hard for armistice - we needed to get our goddamn money back. That's why we took it easy on Germany - they needed to buy shit from us. That's why we took it so hard on England and France - they were so far in the hole that they owed us for decades. The United States profiteered hard core on WWI. If the US had straight-up refused to get involved in it at all, they'd probably still be patrolling the Maginot Line.True, World War I was not nearly as positive an experience for working Americans as World War II would be;
After World War II, Europe recovered largely as a result of American aid; the nation that had suffered least from the war contributed most to reconstruction. But after World War I, the money flowed the other way.