Zinn does a good job explaining the interest levels of World War 1, which is something that never got explained to me. I knew that the Woodrow Wilson stated at the beginning of the war that the United States would stay neutral; however, once Germans attacked the US ships, the United States entered the war. I thought that once this happened that the people of the United States would come together and mostly be on the side of fighting. Zinn makes it clear that the war was actually not popular with most of the people in the United States and that most people did not volunteer to join the military. This war was needed on both an economic standpoint and a unity standpoint, which both did not fully go the way it was supposed to.
In the Crash Course video, John Green talks about how World War 1 is one of the most interesting topics to talk about. He goes on and talks about who is to blame for the war. Green states that “The German character isn’t to blame for WW1 and in fact, no national character has ever been to blame for any war.” I thought this was interesting since when learning about wars, blaming the aggressors is normally how I was taught it but apparently that is not always the case.
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