Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder
    Unavailable
    1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder
    Unavailable
    1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder
    Ebook686 pages12 hours

    1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder

    By Arthur Herman, PhD

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    How did two men move the world away from wars for land and treasure to wars over ideas and ideologies—a change that would go on to kill millions?

    In April 1917, Woodrow Wilson—champion of American democracy but also of segregation, advocate for free trade and a new world order based on freedom and justice—thrust the United States into the First World War in order to make the “world safe for democracy”—only to see his dreams for a liberal international system dissolve into chaos, bloodshed, and betrayal.

    That October, Vladimir Lenin—communist revolutionary and advocate for class war and “dictatorship of the proletariat”—would overthrow Russia’s earlier democratic revolution that had toppled the powerful czar, all in the name of liberating humanity—and instead would set up the most repressive totalitarian regime in history, the Soviet Union. 

    In this incisive, fast-paced history, the New York Times bestselling author Arthur Herman brilliantly reveals how Lenin and Wilson rewrote the rules of modern geopolitics. Prior to and through the end of World War I, countries marched into war only to advance or protect their national interests. After World War I, countries began going to war over ideas. Together Lenin and Wilson unleashed the disruptive ideologies that would sweep the world, from nationalism and globalism to Communism and terrorism, and that continue to shape our world today.

    Our new world disorder is the legacy left by Wilson and Lenin, and their visions of the perfectibility of man. One hundred years later, we still sit on the powder keg they first set the detonator to, through war and revolution.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 28, 2017
    ISBN9780062570925
    Author

    Arthur Herman, PhD

    Arthur Herman, PhD, is the author of the New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World, which has sold a half million copies worldwide, and Gandhi and Churchill, which was a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His six other books include To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, which was nominated for the UK’s prestigious Mountbatten Maritime Prize; Freedom’s Forge, named by the Economist as one of the Best Books of 2012; and Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.

    Related to 1917

    Related ebooks

    Asian History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      6 Myths Of The Russian Revolution

      Mar 18, 2021

      When we discuss the Russian Revolution of 1917, we are actually talking about two separate events that took place within the same year; the first was a spontaneous movement that overthrew the reigning tsar, Nicholas II, while the second was an orches

      9 min read

    • Article

      'Red Famine' Chronicles the Ruin Wrought Upon Ukraine by Josef Stalin

      Oct 19, 2017

      'Gulag' author Anne Applebaum gives a chorus of contemporary voices to the tale, and her book is written in the light of later history.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Divided We Stand

      Dec 4, 2018

      Divided We Stand
      13 min read

    • Article

      From Friends To Enemies

      Jul 7, 2022

      From Friends To Enemies
      5 min read

    • Article

      From Friends To Enemies

      Jul 7, 2022

      From Friends To Enemies
      5 min read

    • Article

      War List ‘I See…’

      May 7, 2019

      War List ‘I See…’
      6 min read

    • Article

      Interview / Jonathan Dimbleby

      Apr 15, 2021

      Interview / Jonathan Dimbleby
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Final Slog

      May 12, 2022

      The Final Slog
      4 min read

    • Article

      Bomber Onslaught

      Apr 30, 2019

      Bomber Onslaught
      6 min read

    • Article

      Blueprint For Wwii Resistance

      Sep 28, 2021

      Blueprint For Wwii Resistance
      12 min read

    • Article

      Black Jack’s Men

      Dec 22, 2020

      Black Jack’s Men
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lenin Had Been Assassinated?

      Feb 25, 2021

      A former reporter and editor, Barnes Carr is the author of Operation Whisper: The Capture Of Soviet Spies Morris And Lona Cohen and The Lenin Plot. An awardwinning author, he previously worked as an executive producer for WRNO Worldwide, a shortwave

      5 min read

    • Article

      Destination Tehran

      Aug 4, 2020

      Destination Tehran
      14 min read

    • Article

      Resisting Nazism

      Dec 24, 2019

      Resisting Nazism
      8 min read

    • Article

      Hitler’s Greatest Mistake?

      Nov 25, 2021

      Hitler’s Greatest Mistake?
      8 min read

    • Article

      Besieged

      Aug 25, 2020

      Besieged
      10 min read

    • Article

      Wired Words

      Feb 23, 2018

      Wired Words
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Last Days Of Hitler

      Jan 2, 2020

      The Last Days Of Hitler
      11 min read

    • Article

      'I'd Like To Volunteer, Sir': 75 Years After D-Day, Memories Live On Through Oral Histories

      May 30, 2019

      Just before parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, Fayette Richardson asked himself an existential question: "My God, Most Powerful, what am I doing here?" The thought had to be on the minds of myriad soldiers on June 6, 1944. It was D-Day, the launc

      7 min read

    Reviews for 1917

    4.5/5

    15 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Arthur Herman’s 1917 was published this year in observation of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and of significant developments in World War I. The unifying theme of the book is to contrast the actions and characters of the two most influential persons on the world stage that year—Woodrow Wilson, president of the U.S. from March, 1913 to March, 1921, and Vladimir Lenin, who served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924.The author states that one mission of the book is to show how “these two intellectuals and dreamers” managed to overthrow traditional geopolitics and alter the distribution of world power. For Wilson’s part, he got Congress to declare war on Germany in spite of his campaign promises to keep the country out of war. After the war was over, Wilson’s words stimulated nationalist quests around the world, much to the Allies’ chagrin, and to the benefit of Lenin, as will be explained below. Lenin successfully established the world’s first one party state dictatorship which he imposed on a vast and diverse country on the basis of an ideology some historians have, to account for its success, likened to a religious cult. Certainly the Soviets adapted some of the tropes of religion (Lenin loves the little children!) to push their agenda.Perhaps more importantly, Herman avers, the age was “shaped as much by what Lenin and Wilson aimed and failed to do as by what they succeeded in doing.” Both worked for a new world order, and both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were indeed changed radically, but not in the directions either of them intended or foresaw.Two (only somewhat) lesser players in Herman’s drama are Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Alexander Kerensky, the principal rivals of, respectively, Wilson and Lenin. Herman contrasts the hard headed, realistic approaches of Lodge and Kerensky with the more theoretical and utopian approaches of Wilson and Lenin. But while Lodge, through his influence in Congress, prevailed in curtailing Wilson’s agenda, Kerensky was pushed aside by Lenin, who succeeded in overthrowing Kerensky and his democratic government.Ironically, Wilson was on the winning side of the war, yet he failed to achieve his long term goals of setting up an effective multinational agency to maintain the peace. Lenin, on the other hand, not only overturned a long ruling monarchy, but successfully set in motion the entrenchment of a completely new kind of state. Herman attributes Lenin’s relative (compared to Wilson’s) success to his extreme ruthlessness and willingness to use “revolutionary violence” to achieve his ends. Herman might also have mentioned the very different natures of the polities each man strove to direct. Lenin, in a way, had more “freedom” to exercise his will in his non-free society than Wilson did in his democracy with the shared power of different branches of government. It is also relevant to Herman’s theme to note the observations of historian David Reynolds, the author of in The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century. Reynolds points out that after the war, Wilson not only did not make himself any friends abroad, but unwittingly aided the cause of Lenin and communism. By lecturing Europe on the need for “self-determination” of minorities, Wilson roiled up anti-colonial agitators and alienated most of the other world leaders. They scoffed at Wilson for his hypocrisy and excoriated him for not understanding the effects “his seductive words would set in motion.” In response to the hostility of the Allied leadership against Wilson for stirring up trouble without knowing what he was talking about, Wilson not only backed down, stating that he had spoken “without the knowledge that nationalities existed….” but acquiesced in the imperialist policies of his allies. That precipitated a backlash against Wilson throughout the world outside America by the people as well as their leaders, with disillusioned nationalists turning to communism. Reynolds argues, “Right across the colonial world, in fact, Leninism gained from Wilson’s shattered credibility.”Evaluation: 1917 was certainly a pivotal year in history, with the legacy of both Wilson and Lenin affecting the political climate long after they left the world scene. Herman’s account provides an interesting way to frame some of the most important events that shaped the 20th century.(JAB)
    • 5/5
      It gives you an excellent. Ore i to how the Marxists took advantage of a crisis and ruined the Russian state right when it was on the verge of becoming a modern democracy.
    • 4/5
      Whatever minute admiration I had for Woodrow Wilson has been erased by Mr. Herman's account of 1917, and it brings into sharper focus the danger we face today. Our leaders are equally as arrogant as Wilson and like Lenin seem immune to human suffering.