From August 1914 through March 1917, Americans were increasingly horrified at the unprecedented destruction of the First World War. While sending massive assistance to the conflict's victims, most Americans opposed direct involvement. Their country was immersed in its own internal struggles, including attempts to curb the power of business monopolies, reform labor practices, secure proper treatment for millions of recent immigrants, and expand American democracy.

Yet from the first, the war deeply affected American emotions and the nation's commercial, financial, and political interests. The menace from German U-boats and failure of U.S. attempts at mediation finally led to a declaration of war, signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917.

America and the Great War commemorates the centennial of that turning point in American history. Chronicling the United States in neutrality and in conflict, it presents events and arguments, political and military battles, bitter tragedies and epic achievements that marked U.S. involvement in the first modern war. Drawing on the matchless resources of the Library of Congress, the book includes many eyewitness accounts and more than 250 color and black-and-white images, many never before published.

With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy, America and the Great War brings to life the tempestuous era from which the United States emerged as a major world power.

Margaret E. Wagner is the author of The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War, The American Civil War: 365 Days, and World War II: 365 Days and co-author of The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference and The Library of Congress World War II Companion. A senior writer/editor in the Library of Congress Publishing Office, she lives in Arlington, Virginia.

David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford University. He is the author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History. He lives in Palo Alto, California.