Book Review: America Enters the World by Page Smith

America Enters the World by Page Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The succession of the nation’s youngest President kicked started a new era not only for the country but the Presidency as well, progressivism and reform come to the forefront of people’s minds. America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I is the seventh volume of Page Smith’s A People’s History series covering American history starting in 1901 through the early 1920s which sees the continuing capital-labor conflict even as Theodore Roosevelt brings reform in his wake only for the reforming spirit to move to the Democratic party under Woodrow Wilson who leads the country into Great War.

In the near quarter-century covered in this volume that saw a massive change in governmental institutions, place of the United States on the world stage, and the continued battle between capital and labor that at first seemed to give labor some help only for the fallout from the Great War to make capital “patriots”. Smith emphasized Theodore Roosevelt throughout this volume, even how he was a thorn in Woodrow Wilson’s side when he came to the fore and became the primary focus. While Roosevelt and Wilson were emphasized, Smith when it focused on the capital-labor conflict focused on who he believed previous historiography did not focused enough on, namely those labor and radical leaders who crisscrossed the country to various strikes and other events to represent the working man or call for a change social justice. The American entry into the war and the Bolshevik takeover resulted in these individuals becoming “enemies” especially by the full propaganda weight the business community put behind it. Through almost 1100 ages of text, Smith’s writing brings to life the start of the 20th Century in a similar but also new way than other general histories. Like all previous volumes, Smith looks at art, culture, and various groups within American life during this time, for the first it seems that all are in some part connected to the big national themes he covers and only later goes into more detail into.

America Enters the World sees the launch of the influence of the United States beyond the Americas into Europe itself even while at home reform and progressive achieve a wave of support. Page Smith brings out in detail the events of these times and gives the reader a lot to behold over two plus decades of history.

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