Rating: 
Summary: A diatribe
Review: Rather too soon after taking up this book, I have put it down. Mr. Fleming's combative, aggressive tone, his History Channel style, the irritating absence of a separate bibliography and the errors of fact have all contributed to that. I intend to give the book away.
Rating:
Summary: Over the Top
Review: Right from the start, when Fleming hopelessly muddles the beginning of the war to put Germany in the best light ("The French, allied with Russia, attacked from the west," he says (p. 43). In fact, it was Germany that unleashed the Schlieffen Plan on France) it is clear this work is a dedicated piece of revisionism. While Fleming spills much ink on his theme the Germans were the victims of shadowy forces conspiring against them, and not primarily responsible for turning a diplomatic stand-off over an act of pre-emptive regicide into a world war, it is clear the true villain of the book is Woodrow Wilson.
If anything goes wrong, Wilson is to blame - not just the failure of the League of Nations, but everything from Bolshevism ("Without U.S. support, the bankrupt British and French could do little but fritter around the edges of the Russian upheaval," p. 342 - gee, I thought the problem with Wilson was he was too eager to intervene in other people`s wars), to prohibition: "If Wilson had been on the job as president instead of playing world savior he might have fought the passage of this bad legislation and immediately started rallying enough congressional votes to sustain a veto. He did neither. It was one more piece of evidence that the president had lost sight of his responsibility as leader of the American people." (p. 414-415).
In exonerating Germany Fleming seems to take positive glee at the fate of "poor little Belgium." "To an objective observer, Northcliffe and his allies in Wellington House would seem to have had a problem arousing pity for Belgium." He describes the appalling personal rule of King Leopold as "a holocaust that exceeds anything in previous, or subsequent, recorded history," and calls Belgium "about as neutral as Scotland" and "about as democratic as Germany." (p. 49-50). Setting aside for a moment Germany's unmentioned but less than stellar record of barbarity in its own Africa dominions (just ask the Herero people), and the book's pooh-poohing of German atrocities during their debauch through Belgium, the principle of state sovereignty itself cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the triumphant march of Fleming's revisionism. Everything the noble Teutons do (or don't do) is ascribed to the noblest of causes - even the failure of German propaganda is ascribed to "Naïve Germanic self-righteousness." (p. 61).
Ironically, it is clear Anglophobic Fleming draws heavily on arch imperialist Niall Ferguson (see footnote 17, p. 494) for his themes (as does fellow revisionist John Mosier in his The Myth of the Great War). He says that it wasn`t until 1918 that "The Germans, exasperated by the Allied refusal to settle for anything less than a knockout blow, were contemplating peace terms as harsh and vindictive as those the French and British imposed." (p. 480). In fact, as anyone who has read Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims in the First World War would know, German imperial ambitions - which aimed at the effective annexation of the Low Countries and neutralization of France - were fully realized even before the end of the first year of fighting.
In his efforts to whitewash the Second Reich Fleming skips from revisionism to fantasy. "Germany's aims before the war were relatively modest," he maintains. "Basically, Berlin sought an acknowledgement that it was Europe's dominant power. It wanted an independent Poland and nationhood for the Baltic states, to keep Russia a safe distance from its eastern border. Also on the wish list was a free trade zone in which German goods could circulate without crippling tariffs in France, Italy, Scandinavia and Austria-Hungary. It is not terribly different from the role Germany plays today in the European Economic Union. But the British Tories could not tolerate such a commercial rival in 1914 and chose war." (p. 480). This paragraph includes one factual error - the Tories were in opposition in 1914 - and the rest is Niall Ferguson-inspired utterly spurious nonsense.
The real extent of Germany's imperial ambition was revealed at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which was forced on Russia in 1918 - Fleming deems this worthy of nothing more than two paragraphs on p. 197. Meanwhile, "The ongoing British blockade would become the greatest atrocity of World War I," Fleming declares (p. 296), something the Armenians, victims of outright genocide perpetrated by Germany's "halfhearted" (p. 58) ally Turkey, might take issue with.
The book is also riddled with mistakes:
Fleming says "[Media baron Lord] Northcliffe almost single-handedly revived the British Conservative Party in the elections of 1912." (p. 48). Presumably, he means the two elections of 1910.
Contra Fleming, tanks did not make their combat debut at Cambrai in 1917 (p. 220) but on the Somme a year earlier.
Fleming describes the Prime Minister of South Africa as coveting "German West Africa, a huge colony just north of his country, now known as Zimbabwe." (p. 336). In fact, Zimbabwe used to be called Rhodesia after the very British Cecil Rhodes. Fleming has it confused with Namibia.
Fleming lists Texas as a Republican gain in the election of 1920 (p. 469); in fact it stayed in the Democratic column.
In sum, this is disappointing work from a historian whose writing (his Burr-Hamilton history Duel, for example) I have enjoyed in the past.
Rating: 
Summary: illusion of peace
Review: The book is an extremely well written book for anyone that has an interest in this time period. Fleming captures the times and sacrifices of the menand women serving ournation. He discribes aspects of this time period that many biographers of Wilson choose to ignore such as the imprisoment of Socialist Eugene Deba snd the supressing of civil liberties of dissenters.The book is a useful refence to anyone who wants to counter notions that our intervention was wise or desirable. It counters sterotypic portrayals of the British and French being the pillars of the stewards of democracy . It portrays Germany as a country caught up in circumstnaces with a more balanced portrayal of the Kaiser.However as provacative as these thoughts are I can not agree with all of Fleming 's conclusions. The end of the book tends to descend in an anti Wilson polemic including blaming Wilson for Prohibition and the rise of the American mafia! The facts were that Wilson vetoed the Volsted Act but one would never know that from Fleming's account.FDR is portrayed as a German hater(prelude to his anti FDR tome-New Dealers War?).Was this book written before that one? Teddy Roosevelt a Republican is accurately shown to be some what of a war monger but this leads to the question if Wilson was opposed to Teddy can not one argue that Wilson tried to keep us out of war. Fleming tends to ignore any evidence that puts Wislon in a more noble light. It even accuses the President wife and doctor of deceiving the American public on Wilson's stroke while ignoring the fact that 90 years ago it would have triggered a panic if the American people were told the nitty gritty of the President's condition. I gave the book five stars even with my disagreements because the book is well done even though many of its conclusions will be debated by historians for the next 100 years.
Rating:
Summary: Parallels between WWI and the war with Iraq
Review: There is a lot of parallels between the war with Iraq and Thomas J. Fleming's book "The Illusion of Victory:America in World War I." One of which I noticed was when Fleming mentioned how we seem to think it was automatically ok for us to attack Germany in WWI because of the dictator in WWII. But infact we really had no reason at all, because the Germans were merely sticking up for their ally in Austria when the arch-duke of Austria was assassinated by terrorists from Serbia's Black Hand org. So Fleming presents the real case in that there was two completely different situations in World War I and World War II. Rather than Germany being the agressor they were being the defending country which was completely reversed in WWII. Another case is that Wilson was not the only president to blame. Though it is easy to point a finger at him because he abandoned his 14 points when the French (in the bitter thought) told Wilson that what Germany did was unforgivable as well as flew Wilson into the country and had shown him the damage the Germans had done, but the book also shows that Teddy Roosevelt was also at fault for some of the issues of pressure Wilson faced because he was advocating that we send troops to Paris to help with the war efforts. Like today, we easily blame Bush for his involvement in Iraq. Though it may seem like we do not belong there, one person who is partially to blame for this "illusion" is Clinton himself who infact really did nothing except bomb sites in Iraq as opposed to what should have been done when he was in office. There is no doubt Saddam has or at least had Weapons of Mass destruction, but it very well could have been taken care of in the Clinton administration and the burden would be lifted off Bush for the fact that he has yet to find any in Iraq. This book definitely opens your eyes to show you that you don't necessarily have the whole truth and that usually problems in one's administration came from the previous administration.
Rating:
Summary: Parallels between WWI and the war with Iraq
Review: There is a lot of parallels between the war with Iraq and Thomas J. Fleming's book "The Illusion of Victory:America in World War I." One of which I noticed was when Fleming mentioned how we seem to think it was automatically ok for us to attack Germany in WWI because of the dictator in WWII. But infact we really had no reason at all, because the Germans were merely sticking up for their ally in Austria when the arch-duke of Austria was assassinated by terrorists from Serbia's Black Hand org. So Fleming presents the real case in that there was two completely different situations in World War I and World War II. Rather than Germany being the agressor they were being the defending country which was completely reversed in WWII. Another case is that Wilson was not the only president to blame. Though it is easy to point a finger at him because he abandoned his 14 points when the French (in the bitter thought) told Wilson that what Germany did was unforgivable as well as flew Wilson into the country and had shown him the damage the Germans had done, but the book also shows that Teddy Roosevelt was also at fault for some of the issues of pressure Wilson faced because he was advocating that we send troops to Paris to help with the war efforts. Like today, we easily blame Bush for his involvement in Iraq. Though it may seem like we do not belong there, one person who is partially to blame for this "illusion" is Clinton himself who infact really did nothing except bomb sites in Iraq as opposed to what should have been done when he was in office. There is no doubt Saddam has or at least had Weapons of Mass destruction, but it very well could have been taken care of in the Clinton administration and the burden would be lifted off Bush for the fact that he has yet to find any in Iraq. This book definitely opens your eyes to show you that you don't necessarily have the whole truth and that usually problems in one's administration came from the previous administration.
Rating:
Summary: Vital for anyone who plans on voting ever again
Review: This book may be a bit of an eye-opener for some people. With many Americans still thinking that the Germans were terrible villains in World War I (some even confusing WWI Germans with the Nazis), with many Americans unaware of our own history of our own civil liberties, with many Americans blindly traipsing down the path of hatred once again, this book's insights are invaluable. The Illusion of Victory demonstrates, for anyone naive enough to trust politicians, the self-serving nature of nearly all of those in power, and the dangers of even scrupulous ones (such as Wilson). It also highlights the blatant and tragic trouncing of civil liberties in the Epionage Act (comparable to the Patriot Act), the moronic and blind hatred of anything German caused by propaganda from Wellington House and George Creel (comparable to French-bashing incited by the War in Iraq), the deception of the American public into thinking that the war was justified and that it would be easy & simple (many people, including some congressmen, didn't think that we would even send troops overseas). In the war, we ended up losing over 30,000 soldiers *in our own training camps* (prompted by lack of such simple equipment as blankets). 30,000 doughboys died on our side of the Atlantic--that out of about 120,000 casualties total, which includes 50,000+ killed in combat. The truth of the matter is that this isn't a book about America in World War I. It's a book about America in nearly all of our wars--the Mexican and Spanish Wars, the two Gulf Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Even in World War II, the Revolution, and the Civil War, our motivation was always economics and politics.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, insightful, look at the dawn of the modern world
Review: This is a fascinating, entertaining, and truly eye-opening book. Like Thomas Fleming's earler "The New Dealers' War," "The Illusion of Victory" is not only a great survey of events that shaped the modern world, but also a much-needed puncturing of one of the twentieth century's most over-inflated reputations (in the former case, FDR's, in this one Woodrow Wilson's) and a very timely reminder of how war overthrows all aims. Most of all, though, this is just extremely well-written history. It is definitely worth a read. Today, more than three-quarters of a century after the end of the first world war, the myths of that conflict, of America's place in it, and Woodrow Wilson's role in keeping us out, and getting us in, are more pervasive than ever. Fleming reveals not only what a failure Wilson truly was, but how the idealism for which he is so celebrated today was not only sacrificed on the altar of international politicking and hatred, but was poisoned even by the president's own messiah complex and uncompromising partisanship. Fleming paints Wilson as a truly unpleasant figure. And while I can imagine that many readers might consider this an overly negative portrayal -- and accuse Fleming of abandoning the serene and godlike objectivity so many historians maintain (or simulate) -- Fleming has the facts to back up his conclusions. The energy with which Thomas Fleming gores sacred cows like Wilson and FDR is one of his more distinctive characteristics, and it's one I, for my part, particularly value. As I said, there are many especially timely lessons contained in this book. One of the most striking concerns the remarkably vicious campaign against anti-war, or even insufficiently pro-war, elements in the United States, led by the government itself and its partisans. Whatever your opinions on the contemporary "USA PATRIOT Act," you'll have to admit that John Ashcroft has not even remotely approached the reign of terror carried out in the U.S. during world war one in the name of "100 percent Americanism." This discovery is just one of the many unsettling things readers may learn for the first time between these covers. Another concerns the equally vicious propaganda campaign against Germany, begun in the U.S. by the British and later enthusiastically adopted by the U.S. government. As other observers have argued, enciting hatred seems to be essential to carrying out the war aims of mass democracies. It's not enough to say we disagree with an opposing government's policies; the enemy -- citizens as well as governments -- have to be painted as subhuman, tarred with accusations of unimaginable atrocities, and condemned to nothing less than absolute, crushing defeat. Fleming does an excellent job showing how French, British, and even American leaders participated in the stirring-up of this blood-hatred of the Germans, and incited the American people to give in to it as well. The corollary of this, of course, is that such hatred can't turn on a dime, and it poisoned attempts to craft a peace treaty that solved legitimate grievances and created a new and better world. Fleming reveals, with sometimes painful clarity, how hatred fueled the creation of a Versailles Treaty designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily, and politically for generations to come. We all know the monsters that this created. On the whole, I find it hard to recommend this title *too* enthusiastically. I truly enjoyed the time I spent reading it, regretted having to put it down, and looked forward to when I'd be able to dive in again. It's hard to ask more from a book than that, and when a title is not only entertaining and educational, but challengingly "revisionist" and eye-opening too ... well, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, insightful, look at the dawn of the modern world
Review: This is a fascinating, entertaining, and truly eye-opening book. Like Thomas Fleming's earler "The New Dealers' War," "The Illusion of Victory" is not only a great survey of events that shaped the modern world, but also a much-needed puncturing of one of the twentieth century's most over-inflated reputations (in the former case, FDR's, in this one Woodrow Wilson's) and a very timely reminder of how war overthrows all aims. Most of all, though, this is just extremely well-written history. It is definitely worth a read. Today, more than three-quarters of a century after the end of the first world war, the myths of that conflict, of America's place in it, and Woodrow Wilson's role in keeping us out, and getting us in, are more pervasive than ever. Fleming reveals not only what a failure Wilson truly was, but how the idealism for which he is so celebrated today was not only sacrificed on the altar of international politicking and hatred, but was poisoned even by the president's own messiah complex and uncompromising partisanship. Fleming paints Wilson as a truly unpleasant figure. And while I can imagine that many readers might consider this an overly negative portrayal -- and accuse Fleming of abandoning the serene and godlike objectivity so many historians maintain (or simulate) -- Fleming has the facts to back up his conclusions. The energy with which Thomas Fleming gores sacred cows like Wilson and FDR is one of his more distinctive characteristics, and it's one I, for my part, particularly value. As I said, there are many especially timely lessons contained in this book. One of the most striking concerns the remarkably vicious campaign against anti-war, or even insufficiently pro-war, elements in the United States, led by the government itself and its partisans. Whatever your opinions on the contemporary "USA PATRIOT Act," you'll have to admit that John Ashcroft has not even remotely approached the reign of terror carried out in the U.S. during world war one in the name of "100 percent Americanism." This discovery is just one of the many unsettling things readers may learn for the first time between these covers. Another concerns the equally vicious propaganda campaign against Germany, begun in the U.S. by the British and later enthusiastically adopted by the U.S. government. As other observers have argued, enciting hatred seems to be essential to carrying out the war aims of mass democracies. It's not enough to say we disagree with an opposing government's policies; the enemy -- citizens as well as governments -- have to be painted as subhuman, tarred with accusations of unimaginable atrocities, and condemned to nothing less than absolute, crushing defeat. Fleming does an excellent job showing how French, British, and even American leaders participated in the stirring-up of this blood-hatred of the Germans, and incited the American people to give in to it as well. The corollary of this, of course, is that such hatred can't turn on a dime, and it poisoned attempts to craft a peace treaty that solved legitimate grievances and created a new and better world. Fleming reveals, with sometimes painful clarity, how hatred fueled the creation of a Versailles Treaty designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily, and politically for generations to come. We all know the monsters that this created. On the whole, I find it hard to recommend this title *too* enthusiastically. I truly enjoyed the time I spent reading it, regretted having to put it down, and looked forward to when I'd be able to dive in again. It's hard to ask more from a book than that, and when a title is not only entertaining and educational, but challengingly "revisionist" and eye-opening too ... well, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.
Rating: 
Summary: lopsided illusion
Review: This is a work of impressive scholarship, with some interesting and important new information (at least to modern readers). However, in my view, it is marred by the negative tone througout what I read of it (I confess I didn't finish the book). It seems to me that rather than presenting a truly neutral position on the U.S. entry into the war, he goes too far the other way, and ends up as an apologist for the Germans, who were by no means innocents needing to be defended. If you are going to read one book on the First World War, this is not it.
Rating:
Summary: Book is a bit too narrowly focused
Review: Thomas Fleming does an adequate job chronicling the American political intrigue, but treads too lightly on the international machinations that finally pulled America into WWI. Preferably the book would include a broader exposition of the various foreign conspiracies that were influencing America's policy during the period.
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