The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America - Michael Neiberg

[@viggowiin]

Great lecture

[@mcfontaine]

This series of talks is absolutely brilliant. Thank you.

[@loismacmillan5626]

Michael Neiberg is always amazing. He always inspires teachers to make more interesting lessons for their students. Thank you National WWI Museum!!!! (I wish I had seen this earlier! My lessons will be different in the next few weeks!)

[@horizon42q]

Excellent lecture. Well done. Thank you for posting this one

[@williaminus6545]

Terrible lecture - Hardly. Terrible lecture. He should have talked about how profitable the war was to American banks. Talked about how JP Morgan put Wilson in office. Talk about the connection of JP Morgan to Hines, the Amer. Ambassador in UK, How he was paid by JP Morgan! How he told Wilson to go to war because British would lose and not be able to pay American bank loans off. Wilson could have seized the peace initiatives in 1915 and 1916 and ended the war. But it was too profitable to American banks! Read some of the pacifist literature of the times. Read what the Senators who voted against the war in 1917 said.

[@jezalb2710]

@@williaminus6545 war is awesome business. There is nothing new in what you wrote.

[@johnskojec5462]

​@williaminus6545

[@Tsototar]

10:25 - any chance anyone has a full citation (or even link to online resource?) for the scrapbook mentioned?

[@quentinnewark2745]

Here: www.loc.gov/item/mm82047621/

[@jimranallo2380]

And the balfour accord?

[@willboudreau1187]

It warms the cockles of my heart to hear Neiberg give an entire lecture without making gutter sniping anti-Trump comments and then snickering like a school boy (you'll quickly see this if you watch any of his stuff during the Trump era, which mysteriously does not happen in administrations before or after, just sayin').

[@hafismi]

I mean, can you blame him? Looking back now, he was the biggest joke of a "president" in US history. Lost the popular vote twice in a row, so at least the majority of the American people saw through him.

[@alexs_toy_barn]

@@hafismi yes we can blame him for being both wrong and unprofessional

[@WWFanatic0]

This was from 2018...the middle of his presidency. I've seen listened to other talks of his during the Trump era and didn't hear a single comment about modern politics. The closest I've heard is how the divisions of the Middle East in WWI led to issues the US is still dealing with today. You trumpers really are a sensitive lot aren't you? Have to make up things to be made about to act like the victims. Still defending a guy that lost over two years ago.

[@asdffsasdffaa]

At 8:46,, Dr Neiberg correctly points out that the US will run out of gold. But I think he misses the point, from the American point of view: A sudden outflow of gold would force banks to call in their loans, because all banks operate under a fractional reserve system. That would almost certainly cause an immediate financial crisis in America, as banks on the gold standard would have been forced to accept as many redemptions as their gold could offer until giving up and going under. Given that no bank operates at 100% reserves, any run on gold would cause a financial crisis, and Americans knew it. From America's point of view, why should they suffer from European businessmen caught up in yet another European Imperial, prestige-based war? Shutting down the exchanges makes perfect sense from the American policy point of view at the time. It prevents panic. Now America has institutionalized what are called "circuit breakers", rules which force trading in individual stocks to cease if movement is too crazy (at varying tiers of crazy), and the same for the exchanges as a whole.

[@0ldb1ll]

As early as 1865, the Prussians imported into the US considerable quantities of gun-cotton; an explosive made by treating cotton with nitric and sulphuric acids and used in artillery shells. Cotton did not grow in Germany.

[@pagerthemacaquemonkey3248]

What were the atrocities? I have seen some on the "corpse factories", but i can't seem to find much else specifically on the atrocities before ww1.

[@huma474]

the Great War youtube channel went over some of the atrocities in Belgium in their episode about August of 1914, kzbin.info/www/bejne/inm1f6Kep8t0n6s

[@renefrey6220]

absolutely brillant!

[@pwmiles56]

The Federal Reserve Act became law December 23, 1913. A federal income tax was introduced under the Revenue Act signed October 3, 1913. I can't square this with Dr Neiberg's account (how they came about after August 1914).

[@rosaliesteward2160]

At 45.10m you mention NZ and state the NZ men volunteered because they wanted to make sure that Germany didn't win the war and perhaps seize NZ. The impression I've gained about the reasons for the volunteers signing up were :1) it was seen as courageous and there was shaming of men who didn't, 2) there was a sense of loyalty to Britain as the 'homeland', and 3) it was seen as a free world trip funded by the Government. This changed after the casualties from Gallipoli arrived back in 1915 and learned about the casual sacrifice of 1,000s of lives at the orders of British generals. As the volunteers dwindled off so much that the NZ Govt. DID introduce conscription, in 1916.

[@alganhar1]

Coldstream Guards the most elite unit in the British Army in 1918? I think the other Guards Regimants might want to have a word with you sir.... as might the Rifle Brigade, the Horse Guards, and possibly the Royal Marines, though to be fair to the latter they, like the US Marines, are on Navy Strength, not Army! They would likely still argue it though! All the Foot Guards Regimants were good however, they still are (though they are an amalgamated Regiment now, with a Batallion of each), many people do not realise the British Army Guards Regiments were more than just Ceremonial troops. While they did, and still do do the cermony, they do, and did that on rotation, the rest of the time they were training as Infantry... and they had a reputation to uphold!

[@thomasjamison2050]

Elite as being the favorite dress unit of the elites.

[@0ldb1ll]

Whilst the Guards (both Foot and Horse) have a strong public presence and very pretty uniforms, I would be hesitant in describing them as 'the elite'. The Marines, for instance, would probably beg to differ.

[@ralphl7643]

If the US became New Prussia, then Barbarian Canada would mean that it was still British, which seems unlikely.

[@masonalexander7056]

The Federal Reserve Act was signed by Wilson in December of 1913. Income tax was authorized by the 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913. WW I is not responsible for either.

[@Souledex]

Income tax had a predecessor. The use of the federal reserve changed massively because of ww1. Just cause you know a relative date doesn’t mean you know it’s proximate reality.

[@sebastianzeitblom4668]

36:05 Wasn´t Life Magazine aware that Japan had entered WWI on the side of the Entente in August 1914 by declaring war on Germany? Well, probably people don´t care - it is propaganda, and as such anyway built on lies. I never understood why France, Britain and Russia were morally superior to Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, and I am astonished that people still today appear to make such claims.

[@WWFanatic0]

He mentioned it in other talks, but the Japanese were a British ally, not an American one. Particularly on the west coast, there had been growing fear and mistrust towards Japan for years at that point. The map is more about who Americans are afraid of than who is directly their enemy. I think the fact that Germany is the lion share of the US, Japan getting the second most, and everyone else is an afterthought demonstrates that.

[@1989TS..]

He makes the same speech over and over. Yet again and again it has the same flaws. . America shouldn't have went to war. Period.

[@alganhar1]

In your 'opinion'... others may hold a different opinion however. Such is life.

[@mu99ins]

@Karen Byrd - Circle the word with a red pencil. But, you understood the point, anyhow, and you did not offer a rebuttal.

[@mu99ins]

When a nation sinks your ships, it is an act of war. Germany was sinking American ships. When a nation tries to encourage your neighbors to wage war on you, it is an act of war. We went to war because Germany was waging war on us.

[@gomaxim7057]

Eddie Rickenbacker was not of German decent.