This is a fascinating, entertaining, and truly eye-opening book. Like Thomas Fleming's earler
The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II
, "The Illusion of Victory" is not only a great survey of events that shaped the modern world, but also a much-needed puncturing of one of the twentieth century's most over-inflated reputations (in the former case, FDR's, in this one Woodrow Wilson's) and a very timely reminder of how war overthrows all aims. Most of all, though, this is just extremely well-written history. It is definitely worth a read.
Today, more than three-quarters of a century after the end of the first world war, the myths of that conflict, of America's place in it, and Woodrow Wilson's role in keeping us out, and getting us in, are more pervasive than ever. Fleming reveals not only what a failure Wilson truly was, but how the idealism for which he is so celebrated today was not only sacrificed on the altar of international politicking and hatred, but was poisoned even by the president's own messiah complex and uncompromising partisanship. Fleming paints Wilson as a truly unpleasant figure. And while I can imagine that many readers might consider this an overly negative portrayal -- and accuse Fleming of abandoning the serene and godlike objectivity so many historians maintain (or simulate) -- Fleming has the facts to back up his conclusions. The energy with which Thomas Fleming gores sacred cows like Wilson and FDR is one of his more distinctive characteristics, and it's one I, for my part, particularly value.
As I said, there are many especially timely lessons contained in this book. One of the most striking concerns the remarkably vicious campaign against anti-war, or even insufficiently pro-war, elements in the United States, led by the government itself and its partisans. Whatever your opinions on the contemporary "USA PATRIOT Act," you'll have to admit that John Ashcroft has not even remotely approached the reign of terror carried out in the U.S. during world war one in the name of "100 percent Americanism." This discovery is just one of the many unsettling things readers may learn for the first time between these covers.
Another concerns the equally vicious propaganda campaign against Germany, begun in the U.S. by the British and later enthusiastically adopted by the U.S. government. As other observers have argued, enciting hatred seems to be essential to carrying out the war aims of mass democracies. It's not enough to say we disagree with an opposing government's policies; the enemy -- citizens as well as governments -- have to be painted as subhuman, tarred with accusations of unimaginable atrocities, and condemned to nothing less than absolute, crushing defeat. Fleming does an excellent job showing how French, British, and even American leaders participated in the stirring-up of this blood-hatred of the Germans, and incited the American people to give in to it as well. The corollary of this, of course, is that such hatred can't turn on a dime, and it poisoned attempts to craft a peace treaty that solved legitimate grievances and created a new and better world. Fleming reveals, with sometimes painful clarity, how hatred fueled the creation of a Versailles Treaty designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily, and politically for generations to come. We all know the monsters that this created.
On the whole, I find it hard to recommend this title *too* enthusiastically. I truly enjoyed the time I spent reading it, regretted having to put it down, and looked forward to when I'd be able to dive in again. It's hard to ask more from a book than that, and when a title is not only entertaining and educational, but challengingly "revisionist" and eye-opening too ... well, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.
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