Dixie's Great War: World War I and the American South ed. by John M. Giggie and Andrew J. Huebner (review)

World War I was simultaneously a transformative event in American society and one that is often forgotten. Its centennial occasioned a corrective among historians and the public alike, prompting commemorations and new examinations of the Great War's importance in American history.

In 2017, the University of Alabama held one such event, a symposium that considered the southern experience of the war. Presenters aimed to explain how the Great War affected the South and how southerners affected it. In four panels focused on mobilization, the home front, the battlefront, and finding meaning in the war, scholars examined these questions and considered whether there was a distinctive southern experience at all. Dixie's Great War: World War I and the American South, edited by John M. Giggie and Andrew J. Huebner, is a lightly edited transcription of that symposium, along with an introduction by the organizers and an afterword.

The volume shows that the southern experience mobilizing for, fighting in, and remembering the war was in line with the national experience. Yet characteristics of the South unquestionably shaped that experience and intensified some of its features. The priorities and interests of the South also helped drive aspects of the national experience, particularly by molding federal policies. For example, the rural character of much of the South shaped the region's experience. A less developed infrastructure, from transportation challenges and irregular mail delivery to limited access to health care, posed challenges to a draft system designed for the urban North. The influx of military bases into the South provided economic stimulus but a level of rapid growth that could overwhelm local communities.

One prominent theme is the importance of race and white supremacy. Racism guided who was drafted and how they served, an unsurprising fact that is explicated clearly and thoroughly here. Further, southern fears that the war could undermine white supremacy strongly shaped how the region wielded its influence on national policies and priorities. White southern politicians pushed to keep African Americans confined to noncombatant roles, for example. Sectional reconciliation was also a key part of mobilization for the war, and another theme highlighted in the volume.

Ultimately, the volume does an excellent job highlighting the ways the war experience transpired in the South and how the South influenced the larger national whole, though the scholars emphasize that they do not find an entirely distinctive southern experience. Indeed, the contributors add to the historiography by showing how the war helped flatten regional distinctions.

This volume embodies the strengths of a good symposium. The scholars each bring new insight to questions about southern history by drawing on their larger body of work, much of which is national in scope. The volume is very readable, as the editors have worked to maintain a conversational tone. The volume thus serves to provide both a focused lens illuminating the southern experience of the war and an accessible sampling of World War I historiography. A drawback of this format, however, is a looser focus on the larger topic. The editors have done well to bring the themes together in the introduction, but the answers to the questions about the southern experience are still partial. As with any symposium, the conversation, especially when driven by audience questions, sometimes strays from the main themes and shifts the topic abruptly.

There is more to be said about these topics and about the role of the historian in commemorations, which is the focus of the brief afterword. This volume, however, provides an important corrective to the prominence of the urban North in World War I historiography. It will also be useful to those teaching about the South during the Great War.

[The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not the views of the Federal Judicial Center or...