American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis

I find myself not knowing what to say or even how to say it if I did know. Five stars means it was a WOW! book for me but what the author details in this book is just too hard to believe even though all of it is true. I have read about this period of our history before so it wasn't exactly new material for me. What Hochschild has done, however, is cast a much wider net that descends to much greater depth than anything I have read before. Basically, what this book does is demonstrate what happens when we don't teach and learn from our history. What we, as a nation, are experiencing today with a non-functioning government populated by idiots and a factionalized society motivated by irrational fears and conspiracy theories is a result of not knowing about the events depicted in this book. Those among us that do not want the children of this country to read about unpleasant or upsetting events of our history will definitely not like what is contained in this book.So what is the book about? It covers a period from just before the entry of the U.S. into WWI during the Wilson administration until Wilson leaves office at the end of his second term. The man who "Kept Us Out of War" does an about face on that issue and goes all in on the side of the Allies and justifies this action based on Germans sinking civilian ships with Americans aboard. The fact that these ships were carrying significant amounts of war materials for the Allies is never revealed to the American public. In fact the British did a wonderful job of leading Wilson and the American public around by the nose regarding what was happening in Europe at that time. It is to be wondered how the American public would have reacted if they really knew what was going on in Europe and behind closed doors among the Allied leadership. Since the British cut the transatlantic cables from Germany to the U.S. at the start of the war the German side of the story was never known in the U.S.Since getting involved in Europe's war was not very popular with the American public Wilson needed to sell this and started a PR campaign that exalted nationalism at its worst. Unfortunately, there were those in this country at that time that were able to take advantage of this campaign for other reasons. Racism, jingoism, nationalism, and anti-labor forces all found something they liked and could benefit from under the guise of backing the war effort and protecting our shores from foreign invasion and influence. Anti-immigration interests mounted attacks on "hyphenated Americans" painting them as not American or not American enough and justifying wholesale deportations for membership in socialist organizations or worse, the IWW the wobblies. Virtually all Eastern and Southern European immigrants, Blacks and Central Americans, and anybody speaking a foreign language and especially German was suspect and subject to warrantless arrest and detention by law enforcement as well as civilian volunteers aiding law enforcement and the DOJ.The war effort was also used by business leaders to quash attempts at unionization by arresting union leaders for a variety of anti-war activities. Of course what helped the anti-union efforts was the passage of federal legislation which made it a criminal offense to speak against the war, the president, or the army or in anyway that was viewed as harmful to the war effort. That legislation is still on the books today though it has been amended in significant form so the abuse it was put to during WWI isn't repeated. While the war was going on we had civilian volunteers acting under the color of law conducting large scale groundless raids looking for draft dodgers and foreign agents and detaining people for days or weeks without basic human necessities not to mention without access to counsel. But then the war ended and with it so it would seem the need for these assaults on basic civil rights. But the abuses continued.About this time Wilson suffered a stroke and disappeared from public view. He lost control of Congress and most importantly the Senate. About the only thing that Wilson cared about during this time was passing the WWI peace treaty which included Wilson's much loved League of Nations. With Wilson pretty much a non-entity in national government things continued as they had been during the war. Now, however, we had ambitious office seekers attempting to mount the nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-labor bandwagon in view of the 1920 presidential election. At this time a young man named John Edgar Hoover enters our national history to begin a career that will be with us for decades to come. Hoover does his best to assist the Democratic front runner to continue his nationalistic and anti-union agenda and the abuses continued. What saved the country isn't entirely clear but it seems that the people just got tired of the hate and voted to change leadership. Harding was elected over the Democrat who shortly thereafter was succeeded by Coolidge who was no gift to labor but had no interests in the extremes of the Wilson administration. Does this history tell us that our only hope of being saved from our present situation is for us, the American voters, to vote to remove those that obstruct our government and divide our nation? I guess you should just read the book and make that decision for yourself. Enjoy.

I thoroughly enjoyed Adam Hochschild’s book on the Spanish Civil War and was very hopeful that his book on the crushing of civil liberties during and immediately after World War I would be as good. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. To be sure Hochschild does a very good job in covering the era, but I believe he over does it. It is one civil liberties violation after another with the evil Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his Bureau of Investigation aide J. Edgar Hoover ferreting out socialists, Wobblies, communists, labor union organizers ad Black Americans coming home from the war. The author leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind that he is man of the Left.It is too much and ignores the real scare that was facing Americans, the very deadly influenza pandemic. Simply put, his book lacks context and he leave out the fact that part of the fear of Bolshevism was based o the fact that Lenin and Trotsky took Russia out of the war to the very real detriment of the American soldiers arriving in France. Further he doesn’t go into detail about the breakup of socialist party into a socialist and a communist faction.Nevertheless, I learned much from the book. Hochschild shows the full extent of press censorship accomplish by Postmaster General Albert Burleson. In those days magazines were distributed by mail and the postal authorities had the ability to suspend mailing privileges of any publication it deemed contrary to the Espionage Act.I also learned of Leo Wendell an accomplished government spy and provocateur entrenched deep in the labor movement. One of the leading red hunters of the day was the very anti-immigrant Senator Albert Johnson of the state of Washington. In 1924 he would go on to write the Johnson-Reed drastically restricting immigration.Woodrow Wilson does nothing to stop the attacks on civil liberties and, in fact, he refuses to pardon of commute the sentence of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs. It would take the election of Republican Warren Harding to commute Debs’ sentence many others. It was Harding who put an end the Red Scare.One of the heroes in the book is Department of Labor official, Louis Post. He personally stopped a huge number of deportations and embarrassed Palmer before a congressional committee thereby hurting his presidential prospects.In sum Hochschild has given us a sese of this sordid time in American history. However, it would have helped if spent more time on the lives of every day American were trying to live normal lives.

As a history major, I was informed of the Red Scare after WWI but no professor ever went into any detail about this part of our history other than to mention a few sentences. Like so much history about the U.S., it reveals the dark and evil forces that Republicans (of today) do not want our children to learn. The themes of racial and political injustice against Negroes and those who opt for social and economic equality are particularly relevant today as Republicans and their zealots refuse to acknowledge much of the horrors of our own history.

I think the author does a very good job capturing the time period of WWI America on the home front. However, he has a very strong leftist bias on the history of the Red Scare. I still highly recommend this book, but I just want readers to be aware of the authors biases before picking up this book. That being said, I do agree with his assessment of Woodrow Wilson, albeit for different reasons. He certainly what I would consider, one of our top three worst presidents of US History.

Well-written; reminds one that that political craziness comes and goes over time.

Strongly composed story of the American problem: the inability to embrace the other, often with tragic consequences. Hochschild focuses on that means for black people, women, and immigrants. The period is 100 years ago during and after WWI But it is as much about America today and how little has changed.

Excellent read.