cover image Crusader Nation: The United States in Peace and the Great War, 1898–1920

Crusader Nation: The United States in Peace and the Great War, 1898–1920

David Traxel, . . Knopf, $27.50 (413pp) ISBN 978-0-375-41078-9

In an elegant and substantive narrative history, Traxel (1898: The Birth of the American Century ) recreates America during the Progressive Era, a time when politicians, church leaders and ordinary citizens were on fire to reform society. Traxel looks at labor organizers like Mary "Mother" Jones, suffragists and prohibitionists (whom he simplistically dismisses as "small-town, self-righteous bluenoses"). Woodrow Wilson, whose presidency threads through this book, oversaw business and banking regulation. Victorian sexual mores gave way, divorce became more commonplace. Traxel suggests that America's crusading impulses were partially responsible for the country's entry into WWI, and ironically, the war quenched the nation's reforming zeal. Soldiers returned disillusioned and unable to find jobs: "[l]ike the rest of the country, they increasingly felt that they owed only themselves." And so began an optimism about business and a determination to kick back and have fun that would carry America through the next decade. Traxel's approach is not especially original, and he overlooks the experience of African-Americans. Nonetheless, the book reads seamlessly, and it will serve a scholarly and general audience as a summary of an important era in U.S. history. 19 b&w photos. (Jan. 30)