Despite being a fairly well-read student of US history, I admit that I've not been well versed in the complex events and details surrounding World War I. Burt Pines has helped me out, with his excellent book and its compelling and unsettling conclusions.

But, first I've several comments "in the interest of full disclosure," as the phrase goes. I know Burt, and he was my boss long ago, in the early 1980s, when I had my first "real" job after completing college and a stint in Korea as a Peace Corps Volunteer. As a policy analyst in the Asia division of a major Washington, DC "think tank", Burt supervised me and, most notably, edited all of my writings there. With his background as a seasoned journalist and national magazine editor, he was an aggressive taskmaster and a tough editor! I learned a lot about writing, and policy and history analyses, through Burt's guidance and critique of my work. I consider myself a much better writer and analyst, as a result. Thanks, Burt!

As his new book's title suggests, "America's Greatest Blunder" finds fundamental and fatal flaws in President Wilson's pre-war leadership, the entry of the US into the European violence, and a loss of American control over the outcome of the war. In 1916, Wilson loudly was proclaiming that the "Great War" between the "Allies" (led by London and Paris) and Germany did not threaten American interests and hence did not require US involvement.