On April 6, 1917, the United States House of Representatives voted to declare war on Germany, bringing the United States into the brutal war that had raged across Europe since the summer of 1914. America’s entry into World War I helped turn the tide of the war, securing a victory for the US and its allies. And while the final shots of the war took place on November 11, 1918, the consequences of “The Great War” live on nearly a century after its end.

Why did the United States become involved in World War I after remaining neutral for so long? How did the war in Europe shape American society? And who actually won World War I? In this episode of The Road to Now, we get the answers to these questions and more in our conversation with military historian and archivist Mitch Yockelson.

Dr. Mitchell Yockelson teaches military history at Norwich University. He has published four books on US history, the most recent of which is Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I (Caliber, 2016). He is also an archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and a member of the Historical Advisory Board of the United States World War I Centennial Commission.

Links:
-Mitchell Yockelson, Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I, (Caliber, 2016). 
-World War I Centennial Commission website

More on World War I
-For World War I’s impact on the modern Middle East, check out our interview with Sean Foley on the History of Syria (The Road to Now #53)
-Benjamin Sawyer, “Manufacturing Germans: Singer Manufacturing Company and American Capitalism in the Russian Imagination During World War I, Enterprise & Society (Vol. 17, Issue 2), June 2016, 301-323.