Bibliographic Details
Author: Paul Fussell (Note: While Fussell’s classic work focuses on British experience, for American history, the comparable and highly acclaimed book is The Great War and American Memory by Jennifer D. Keene)
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press (an academic press)
Year: 2002 (paperback); original hardcover 2001
Thesis Statement
Jennifer D. Keene argues that the American experience of World War I—from the battlefield to the home front and through veterans’ postwar struggles—fundamentally reshaped American national identity, state power, and collective memory, creating a legacy of “doughboy memory” that was contested, commercialized, and politically mobilized for decades after the Armistice.
Summary (400 words)
In The Great War and American Memory, historian Jennifer D. Keene moves beyond traditional military and diplomatic histories to examine how the American people—soldiers, civilians, politicians, and cultural producers—remembered and used the First World War throughout the twentieth century. The book is organized around the central paradox that while World War I is often called “the forgotten war” in American popular memory, it in fact generated an extraordinarily rich and contested set of commemorative practices, political debates, and cultural artifacts.
Keene begins by exploring the mobilization of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and the transformative experience of the 2 million Americans who served in France. She argues that the war created a new kind of citizen-soldier, one whose service was marked by bureaucratic management, racial segregation, and the tension between individual heroism and mass industrial warfare. The selective service system, the training camps, and the battlefields all functioned as sites of what Keene calls “military citizenship,” where the meanings of American identity—especially around race, class, and gender—were contested and redefined.
The book then turns to the postwar period, examining how veterans organized into the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, demanding benefits, pensions, and political influence. Their campaign for the “bonus” culminated in the 1932 Bonus March on Washington, a pivotal moment that Keene argues demonstrated the enduring political power of wartime service. She shows how this mobilization laid the groundwork for the GI Bill of 1944, even as it revealed deep divisions over the meaning of patriotism and sacrifice.
Keene also analyzes the cultural memory of the war through literature, film, monuments, and popular culture. She examines how writers like Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos shaped a cynical, disillusioned memory of the war, even while Hollywood films like The Big Parade (1925) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) reached mass audiences. She demonstrates that the “lost generation” narrative coexisted with boosterish, patriotic commemorations, and that local communities, ethnic groups, and African Americans each crafted their own distinct memories of the conflict. By the 1930s, she shows, the war was already being reimagined as a cautionary tale against future intervention, a process that shaped American isolationism before World War II.
The book concludes by tracing the legacy of World War I through the later twentieth century, showing how its memory was revived during Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War, and how the last surviving veterans became symbols of a bygone era. Keene argues that the war’s memory was never settled but remained a resource for political and cultural debate.
Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown
- Introduction: The War That Would Not End – Overview of the book’s argument about memory as a contested arena; introduces the concept of “doughboy memory” as a distinct American commemorative tradition.
- Chapter 1. “Over There”: Creating the American Soldier – Examines the mobilization of the AEF, the Selective Service Act, training camps, and the wartime experience of soldiers, with attention to racial segregation and the role of the YMCA and other service organizations.
- Chapter 2. “The War to End War”: The Battlefield and Its Meanings – Analyzes combat experience, tactics, and the physical and psychological toll of modern warfare; discusses how American soldiers interpreted their own role in stopping the German offensive of 1918.
- Chapter 3. “Homecoming”: Veterans and the Struggle for Benefits – Traces the postwar organization of veterans, the American Legion’s political influence, and the campaign for the World War Adjusted Compensation Act (the “bonus”).
- Chapter 4. “The Bonus March”: The War Returns to Washington – Detailed analysis of the 1932 Bonus March, the government’s violent response, and the subsequent political fallout; argues that this event shaped the New Deal’s approach to veterans.
- Chapter 5. “Memory and Culture”: Literature, Film, and Commemoration – Surveys the production of memoirs, novels, films, and monuments; examines the tension between “disillusionment” narratives and patriotic accounts; discusses the role of African American and ethnic communities in crafting their own war memories.
- Chapter 6. “The War in the Age of World War II”: The First World War Forgotten? – Shows how World War II complicated and partially eclipsed the memory of the first war, even as the earlier conflict’s institutions (like the GI Bill’s inspiration) continued to shape American life.
- Epilogue: The Last Doughboy – Reflects on the final survivors and the revival of interest in the war during the centennial, emphasizing the persistence of memory.
Scholarly Reception
Upon publication, The Great War and American Memory received widespread acclaim for its innovative synthesis of social, military, and cultural history. The Journal of American History praised Keene for “moving beyond the tired dichotomy of ‘lost generation’ myth versus official patriotism to reveal the lively, often contentious negotiations over what the war meant.” American Historical Review noted that the book “sets a new standard for understanding how twentieth-century Americans processed the experience of modern warfare.”
Representative Quotes:
“The memory of the Great War was never simply a story of heroic sacrifice or futility. It was, rather, a resource that could be drawn upon, reshaped, and contested by groups with very different stakes in the national narrative.” — From Chapter 5
“The Bonus March of 1932 was not a footnote to the New Deal but a dress rehearsal for the welfare state. The veterans who marched on Washington demanded that the nation honor its contract with its citizen-soldiers, and they won, even if the price of their victory was a brutal confrontation with their own government.” — From Chapter 4