Over There: The American Experience in World War I

by Frank Freidel

Here is the story of the American experience in World War I, told largely in the words of the soldiers and sailors themselves.

Genres: World War I, History, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Frank Burt Freidel was a professor of history at Harvard University and the first major biographer of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He received his B.A. (1937) and M.A. (1939) from the University of Southern California before graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1942 with a doctorate in history. He taught at a number of colleges before joining the faculty of Harvard University, where he taught from 1955 until his retirement in 1981.

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a good one on WW1. Good info on the war by the author and good stuff from the participants of the war via the letters they wrote to family members or friends.
If you need to know about the first war the OVER THERE is a good one to start with.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the book itself did a decent job of covering most aspects of the American involvement in the First World War, although it felt a bit sparse when it came to accounts of actual battle. This was more about everything surrounding battle--the opinions from soldiers regarding enlistment, training, transport, etc. That in itself is valuable and interesting--but if you're looking for actual "in the trenches" descriptions, I'd recommend the far more superior "First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I" by Matthew J.Davenport.

Unfortunately, I've knocked off a star on this review because of some very noticeable spelling errors that, IMO, a good editor should have caught. Some were words spelled correctly but clearly the wrong words. Some were actual typos. And some were within the quotes from soldiers, but if that was indeed how it was written in the source, there should have been some sort of indication (i.e., "sic") to indicate it was a literal quote.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the book as background for my thesis for my MA in Humanities degree.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly a US-centric account of the first world war, and badly dated at this point, it leaves out too much of the international context in explaining important developments in the war (e.g., p. 187 Freidel apprears to credit American performance on the Western Front, together with a certain stiffening of French and British forces with making the Germans realize the future was grim. No mention at all of the simultaneous collapse and surrender of Bulgaria in prompting the Germans to enter negotiations for an armistice....)
Nonetheless quite readable and engaging. A refreshing, heavy use of a great number of enlisted, non-com and commissioned officer's diaries and letters to convey in the soldiers' own words what they were going through on the ground in France. Pity these were not footnoted, at least in this edition, which is also marred by many typos.