In this riveting and suspenseful New York Times best-selling book, Adam Hochschild brings WWI to life as never before?
World War I was supposed to be the "war to end all wars." Over four long years, nations around the globe were sucked into the tempest, and millions of men died on the battlefields. To this day, the war stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation.
To End All Wars focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Many of these dissenters were thrown in jail for their opposition to the war, from a future Nobel Prize winner to an editor behind bars who distributed a clandestine newspaper on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britain's most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other.
Hochschild forces us to confront the big questions: Why did so many nations get so swept up in the violence? Why couldn't cooler heads prevail? And can we ever avoid repeating history?
- Family Divided by War: Explore the heart-wrenching stories of families torn apart by their beliefs, including a top British general whose own sister was a leading anti-war activist jailed for her protests.
- The Great War's Dissenters: Discover the long-ignored figures who dared to speak out, from a future Nobel Prize winner jailed for his opposition to an editor who published a clandestine newspaper on toilet paper while behind bars.
- Conscientious Objectors: Follow the harrowing journey of Britain's conscientious objectors—men who refused to fight and paid the price with harsh prison sentences, public scorn, and for some, a death sentence on the Western Front.
- A Sweeping Social History: Go beyond the battlefields into the turbulent heart of British society, where the fight for women's suffrage and the rise of socialism collided with the patriotic fervor of a nation marching to war.
In this riveting and suspenseful New York Times best-selling book, Adam Hochschild brings WWI to life as never before...
World War I was supposed to be the "war to end all wars." Over four long years, nations around the globe were sucked into the tempest, and millions of men died on the battlefields. To this day, the war stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation.
To End All Wars focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Many of these dissenters were thrown in jail for their opposition to the war, from a future Nobel Prize winner to an editor behind bars who distributed a clandestine newspaper on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britain's most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other.
Hochschild forces us to confront the big questions: Why did so many nations get so swept up in the violence? Why couldn't cooler heads prevail? And can we ever avoid repeating history?
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