Great War | Great Read

It’s easy to think of World War I as a European war, but fierce fighting all over the Middle East brought about great changes on socio-economic, cultural, and political levels. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen explores the lasting impact of the Great War on the region’s political geography in T...

Before the birth of Kansas City jazz, the musical community served up ragtime and blues. In 1917, the military-themed anthem “Over There” became a nationwide hit following America’s entry into the war. Peabody Award-winning radio personality Michael Lasser explores the popular songs inspired by Worl...

What happens when German spies collaborate to unleash a campaign of terror upon America at the start of World War I? In Dark Invasion: 1915, a New York City policeman uncovers a German plot to sabotage ships, factories, and even J.P Morgan himself. Howard Blum tells a...

Award-winning author Ann Bausum tells a true story of a terrier that wandered onto an Army training field, befriending Pvt. James Robert Conroy and accompanying him into the trenches of World War I and onto the pages of history. Appropriate for kindergartners and up.

Former State Department and CIA intelligence analyst Mark Stout discusses the birth of modern American espionage during World War I, from aerial reconnaissance and battlefield code-breaking to the search for spies and saboteurs back home in the States.

Historian Petra DeWitt examines the suspicions and hostilities faced by Missouri’s sizable German American population during World War I, including questions about loyalty and an effort to ban the German language in the state.

At 7 in the morning on February 21, 1916, the ground in northern France began to shake. For the next 10 hours, some 1,200 German guns showered shells on a salient in French lines. The onslaught collapsed dugouts, obliterated trenches, severed communication wires, and drove men mad. The Battle of Verdun had begun....

The Library launches a series of programs commemorating the centennial of the start of World War I with military historian D.M. Giangreco’s look at 34-year-old Army National Guard Capt. Harry S. Truman.