This week in the Lectures and History podcast, a lecture about America and World War I.

Kevin Matthews of George Mason University teaches a class on Europe from 1914 to 1948.

The United States had been a debtor nation.

It had owed the rest of the world, especially the Europeans, money, lots of money.

That's how the Americans had funded their industrial revolution.

In 1917, that changed.

And the United States became a creditor nation.

The rest of the world owed it money.

Professor Matthews also discusses America's entry into World War I and the role U.S. troops played in ending the war.

Good afternoon. We had finished talking about the Battle of Verdun last Wednesday,

which for many people epitomizes the tragedy of the First World War.

However, Verdun does not have the distinction, if you want to use that term,

as the bloodiest battle of the First World War.

Instead, that distinction is at this place called the Psalm, which occurred in the same

year of 1916.

There was no strategic objective at the Psalm. It's a little river valley in northern France. The only reason

that this site was selected for this major offensive is, as you can see down here at the bottom,

it's where the French lines and the British lines came together.

And the idea was that both armies could attack together,

break through the German lines into open country,

and have that cavalry charge that the generals were always talking about.

Many of the soldiers who would be fighting at the Psalm, at least in the British Army, were those

...