The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War by David Laskin

Five Stars: The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War by David Laskin
Five Stars

Emigrants from distant lands finding a new home of refuge in America are conscripted to fight in WWI.  This is their conflicted story.
David Laskin's excellent insights to the diverse ethnic, cultural, and economic backgrounds of the emigrants coupled with his profound story telling abilities made this book well worthy of five stars.

I loved this well researched and thoughtfully presented book.

Excerpts from The Long Way Home:
Brotherhood of Men and Love your neighbor as you love yourself. I am beginning to see more and more how we are all one common herd, ruled by another class that has more power than we have. We are told to go and fight and kill and we must go, even though it is against our highest sense of right to kill another. They seem to even mock God, the Father of us all, when they make His children slaughter one another.


The Wilson administration had spent the war years hammering at Huns, alien agents, disloyal hyphenates, German speakers or sympathizers, slackers of all stripes and the public, once infected, remained feverish with hate well into the next decade.

In the hysterical xenophobia of the Red Scare period, Jews, Bolsheviks, and immigrant workers were lumped together as enemies of the American way. Medals, military honors, and loyal service counted for nothing if you spoke with an accent, held a union card, dared to advocate the brotherhood of man.

With Germany’s navy on the brink of mutiny and German workers rioting in the city streets, the Fatherland seemed headed for a Bolshevik-style revolution. But still the German army refused to surrender. The outcome of the war was now all but certain, but the killing and the dying continued.