Christopher Capozzola, “Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of The Modern American Citizen” (Oxford UP, 2008)

Christopher Capozzola, “Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of The Modern American Citizen” (Oxford UP, 2008)

I confess I sometimes wonder where we got in the habit of proclaiming, usually with some sort of righteous indignation, that we have the “right” to this or that as citizens. I know that the political theorists of the eighteenth century wrote a lot about “rights,” and that “rights” made their way into the the U.S. and French constitutions. But when did they begin to dominate political discourse in the way they do today? Christopher Capozzola has written a terrific book tracing the rights reflex to the aftermath of World War I. It’s called Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of The Modern American Citizen (Oxford UP, 2008). The book focuses on a particular aspect of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American political culture that Chris calls “coercive voluntarism”: putting pressure on one’s confederates to “voluntarily” participate in a state-sponsored enterprise. He finds echoes of it throughout the American experience in World War I, and sees its fallout as one of the origins of rights talk. I can’t force you to read this book, but if I could I would. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Episoder(1617)

Aaron Bateman. "Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative" (MIT Press, 2024)

Aaron Bateman. "Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative" (MIT Press, 2024)

A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked ...

6 Jan 20min

Susan McCready, "Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

Susan McCready, "Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

Drawing on memory studies and theatrical history, Commemorative Acts: French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War (University of Toronto Press, 2025) analyses a neglected body of plays staged in Fr...

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Prit Buttar, "To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42" (Osprey, 2023)

Prit Buttar, "To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42" (Osprey, 2023)

The city of St. Petersburg held great significance to the Russian Empire when Peter the Great first built the city in 1703. It was intended to be Russia's "window to the West" and usher in Russia's pl...

2 Jan 1h 41min

Jeremy Black, "A History of Artillery" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

Jeremy Black, "A History of Artillery" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

Jeremy Black's book A History of Artillery (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) traces the development of artillery through the ages, providing a thorough study of these weapons. From its earliest recorded us...

29 Des 202538min

Filip Kovacevic, "KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

Filip Kovacevic, "KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union (University of Toronto Press, 2025) offers a first-ever glimpse into the mysterious and long-ignored world and work of Soviet spies- an...

25 Des 202551min

Samuel Helfont, "The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Samuel Helfont, "The Iraq Wars: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)

American wars in Iraq were a defining feature of global politics for almost thirty years. The Gulf War of 1991, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the campaign against the Islamic State beginn...

24 Des 20251h 2min

Tim Bouverie, "Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World" (Crown, 2025)

Tim Bouverie, "Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World" (Crown, 2025)

Historian Tim Bouverie, the renowned author of the very well received Appeasement, gives us another brilliant history Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the...

19 Des 202547min

Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)

Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)

In The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft (Cornell UP, 2025), Erik Lin-Greenberg shows that drones are rewriting the rules of international security, but not in ways one would expect. E...

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