You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense and foreign affairs. My name is Ryan Evans. I'm the editor-in-chief of

War in the Rocks. In this episode I sat down with Michael S. Nieberg, the chair of war studies at the

U.S. Army War College, and author of the new book The Path to War, How the First World War created Modern America.

Michael and I started talking about this fascinating new work, which you should all read.

It's proof that you can still write new, fresh, fascinating books about the First World War.

But from there we range much more broadly talking about the Second World War,

the lessons America learned from both of those conflicts,

and the lessons of history more broadly.

Thank you so much for joining me.

My pleasure.

It's really great to finally meet you after you've written a couple pieces.

I think we first met through Mark Stout, if Warren Rock City Editor, if that memory serves me correctly.

So you have a new book out this year called The Path to War,

How the First World War created Modern America. This isn't the first time you've written about

the First World War War. And some might say, do we really need another World War I book?

What's your response to those people?

So I don't know what anybody else that's listening to this learned about the first World War

when they were in school, but I learned almost nothing of use.

I learned that there was this president

named Woodrow Wilson and he kind of had this vision and we kind of ended up in the

war which is not terribly useful. And over the last couple decades it seems to me

historians really haven't gone back to that fundamental

...