As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive--until they began to fall mysteriously...

Follows the fates of five interrelated families--American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh--as they move through the dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.

Raised by a wealthy, idiosyncratic and alcoholic mother, Amory Blaine is arrogant and lacking in proper social etiquette which he eventually has to learn. En route from the Midwest to Princeton University, he experiences flirtations with some predatory young women and a chance at friendship with some intellectual young men. His romantic relationship ended when his soul-mate rejected him to marry a wealthier young man.

In the closing days of World War I, the men of the U.S. Army's 77th Division, 308th Battalion were surrounded by German troups in the Argonne Forest. Without food, water or reserve ammunition, cut off from supply and communication lines, and subjected to constant assaults and bombardments, they managed to hold off the enemy until they were finally rescued after five days of desperate action.

"An indispensable, sharply drawn account of America's pivotal--and still controversial--intervention in World War I, enlivened by fresh insights into the key issues, events, and personalities of the period, from the New York Times bestselling author of A World Undone"-- "An indispensable, sharply drawn tour through America's epoch-defining involvement in the Great War, enlivened by fresh insights into the key issues, events, and personalities of...

The Great War of 1914-1918 was the first mass conflict to fully mobilize the resources of industrial powers against one another, resulting in a brutal, bloody, protracted war of attrition between the world's great economies. Now, one hundred years after the first guns of August rang out on the Western front, historian William Philpott reexamines the causes and lingering effects of the first truly modern war. Drawing on the experience of front line...

"In the fifth installment of Amy Stewart's clever and original Kopp sisters series, the sisters get some military discipline drilled into them--whether they're ready or not--as the U.S. prepares to enter World War I"-- Spring, 1917. American women have done something remarkable: they've banded together to create military-style training camps for women who want to serve. These so-called National Service Schools prove irresistible to the Kopp sisters,...

The "Great War" in Europe started in 1914, but it wasn't until April 6, 1917 that the United States declared war on Germany and joined World War I. German submarine attacks on American ships in March 1917 were the overt motive for declaring war, but the underlying reasons were far more complex. Even after the United States officially joined, Americans were divided on whether they should be a part of it. Osborne explores not only how and why the United...

"The vivid story of the young Americans who fought and died in the aerial battles of World War I. The Unsubstantial Air is a chronicle of war that is more than a military history; it traces the lives and deaths of the young Americans who fought in the skies over Europe in World War I. Using letters, journals, and memoirs, it speaks in their voices and answers primal questions: What was it like to be there? What was it like to fly those planes, to...

Documents the stories of five young Harvard students who met different fates while serving in World War I, drawing on uncensored letters and memoirs to illuminate the impact of the conflict on the educated class of soldiers.