re: WW1 history buffs: Good book for the library

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Interesting. One wonders how America would have matured without the void created by a weakened Europe.

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I think America would have almost certainly remained a neutral country. Which meant we would be free to sell arms and materiel to any potential combatant.

Remember, prior to WWI, America had followed George Washington's parting advice to avoid foreign entanglements.

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The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combination and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

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Washington's
FAREWELL ADDRESS
1796