To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild

Apr 20, 2012 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: great-war, world-war

This is a compelling book that focuses on Britain during the Great War. Hochschild makes the conflict come alive, absolutely, and he is a writer of prodigious talent and skill. However, for some reason I can't quite explain, I never found his descriptions of the life and work of British peace activists -- really, the book's main thrust -- quite as compelling. I'm a huge admirer of those who have the fortitude and capacity for original thought necessary to hold their own when faced with a tidal w...more This is a compelling book that focuses on Britain during the Great War. Hochschild makes the conflict come alive, absolutely, and he is a writer of prodigious talent and skill. However, for some reason I can't quite explain, I never found his descriptions of the life and work of British peace activists -- really, the book's main thrust -- quite as compelling. I'm a huge admirer of those who have the fortitude and capacity for original thought necessary to hold their own when faced with a tidal wave of opposition, as is the case with those Hochschild features here, but much as I admired their courage, I eventually found myself skipping through those parts of the book that featured them. If there was ever a war that begged the voice of peace activists, the Great War was it so I couldn't quite figure out why I never found their stories compelling enough to follow, especially throughout the book's second half.

Here is a possible scenerio: Hochschild is pretty far left om the political spectrum (this comes out very clearly in several instances) and his admiration for early 20th century British liberals, stemming from his own 21st century political persuasion (ideologies separated by a century that are worlds apart in terms of repercussions for their adherents), perhaps led him to write a book about them, framing their work with the backdrop of the war. Fair enough but it's possible that he admired them so much that he thought just telling their story would be enough. Not true: in my opinion his backdrop jumps off the page but the activists never do.

Because Hochschild makes the destructive war come to life, I would have enjoyed (hardly the right word for such a depressing topic) the book more had he included more material on other combatant countries besides Britain and Russia (he includes some material on that country only because many of the British peace activists had great hopes for the outcome of the Russian Revolution).

But by and large it's a very good read and quite thorough if you're looking to understand British issues during the Great War.

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Jan 01, 2012 'Aussie Rick' rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ww1, read-military

Having read numerous books on the Great War I wondered if Adam Hochschild’s new book; “To End All Wars” could bring anything new to the field. I am happy to say that it does. I found this book to be an enjoyable and fascinating account of the Great War and those within British society who opposed England’s participation.

Overall it provides the reader with a compelling account of those soldiers who went off to war and fought and those who objected and refused to serve and their supporters. It co...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Krenner1 rated it 5 of 5 stars

Coming off the current frenzy of the popular TV series Downton Abbey, this book tied right in with its intellectual and entertaining explanation of how British officers approached WWI as if it were a fox hunt, and the calvary--immaculate in its red coats and precision--was the perceived answer to victory. Since the war did not end quickly or smoothly, we follow the transformation from a gentleman's war to an industrial one. We also learn of the many dissenters and their fate. I'm not into war bo...more

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May 17, 2011 L Fleisig rated it 5 of 5 stars

"When this century collapses, dead at last,
And its sleep within the dark tomb has begun,
Come, look down upon us, world, file past
And be ashamed of what our age has done.

Inscribe our stone, that everyone may see
What this dead era valued most and best:
Science, progress, work, technology
And death - but death we prized above the rest."

These verses, written by early 20th-century Czech playwright and author Karel Capek, sounded a fitting leitmotif as I read Adam Hochschild's "To End All Wars: A...more "When this century collapses, dead at last,
And its sleep within the dark tomb has begun,
Come, look down upon us, world, file past
And be ashamed of what our age has done.

Inscribe our stone, that everyone may see
What this dead era valued most and best:
Science, progress, work, technology
And death - but death we prized above the rest."

These verses, written by early 20th-century Czech playwright and author Karel Capek, sounded a fitting leitmotif as I read Adam Hochschild's "To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918." The 20th century was one ravaged by two world wars, genocide, and countless `smaller' wars. But for sheer brutality, for the slaughter that turned hundreds of miles of trenches into a charnel house of unprecedented proportions it is hard to imagine a place or time when death was prized more than it was during the war to end all wars.

Histories of World War I abound, from Barbara Tuchman (The Guns of August) to Winston Churchill (The World Crisis, 1911-1918) to John Keegan (The First World War). There are no shortage of books about the bravery of the soldiers who rose from their trenches and marched into certain death. Similarly there are no shortage of books about the almost criminally incompetent British and French Generals whose strategic planning (if you could call it that) was horrifically simple: send hundreds of thousands of men forward against entrenched positions and hope the Germans ran out of machine gun bullets before the British and French forces ran out of men. Not so readily available are books that take a look at the relatively few people who stood up and spoke out against the indiscriminate slaughter. Hochschild balances the scales a bit by taking a look at the stories and motivations behind those few souls who opposed it.

The book is set up as a straightforward chronological narrative beginning with Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 celebrating the 60 years of her monarchy, through the Boer War and the introduction of concentration camps and the use of machine guns as one of the original weapons of mass destruction, the lead up to war, and then a chronological narrative of the war itself. This is all well-plowed ground and if this were simply a narrative of the war it would be a well-written popular history that would serve as a good introduction to the period. However, Hochschild intersperses the traditional narrative with a parallel narrative that was not nearly so familiar to me. While focusing on Britain's role in the war, Hochschild tells us the stories of people like Keir Hardie, Sylvia Pankhurst, Charlotte Despard (the brother of General John French, who was to become Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Forces), Emily Hobhouse, Bertrand Russell and others. These were people from all walks of life who for various reasons, political, social, or religious, opposed the war. Hochschild also looks at some of those who stridently supported the war from the sidelines, including Rudyard Kipling and the author John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps (Dover Thrift Editions)) who lashed out at those who did not adopt the motto For King and Country.

What Hochschild does very well in his book is to explore the family and social connections between the groups leading Britain into war and those few who opposed it. Causalities in World War I, as Hochschild points out hit the upper classes particularly hard. The officer class in the British military was almost exclusively drawn from the upper echelons of British society and their losses in the war were very high. One cliché about the American Civil War describes it as one in which brother fought against brother. Here we had upper class families rent asunder between those who fought (and often died) and those within their ranks who opposed it and sometimes went to prison for those beliefs.

The Russian poet Nadezhda Mandelstam once wrote of the great deeds that can be accomplished by people who with great courage stand up and speak out on behalf of their conscience: that "a person with inner freedom, memory, and fear is that reed, that twig that changes the direction of a rushing river." Hochschild does an excellent job writing about the twigs that desperately wanted to change the rushing river of blood that carried millions of people off to die. Their failure to achieve this goal, however, in no way diminishes their value and the value of this book.(less)

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Aug 13, 2012 Ilya rated it 4 of 5 stars

Unlike World War II and the Cold War, World War I was not about any principles an individual could support or reject. Closer to our time, if the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 or the Able Archer crisis of 1983 had degenerated into a full-scale nuclear war, it also would not have been about anything. That war would have been over in a matter of hours, slaughtered hundreds of millions, and transformed a large portion of the Earth's surface into a radioactive wasteland. In contrast, World War I took...more Unlike World War II and the Cold War, World War I was not about any principles an individual could support or reject. Closer to our time, if the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 or the Able Archer crisis of 1983 had degenerated into a full-scale nuclear war, it also would not have been about anything. That war would have been over in a matter of hours, slaughtered hundreds of millions, and transformed a large portion of the Earth's surface into a radioactive wasteland. In contrast, World War I took over 4 years, slaughtered millions, and only transformed a narrow strip of Northern France and Belgium into a wasteland that is, thankfully, not radioactive but so filled with unexploded ordnance that French engineers still remove hundreds of tons of it each year. Unlike an exchange of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, it could be stopped. This book is about the individuals in Great Britain who spoke and acted against the war. Doing it meant going against both the public opinion and the government of the nation during the period in modern history when it came closest to fascism, but they did it anyway.

The anti-war activists were certainly a diverse bunch. At one end of the spectrum was the Fifth Marquess of Lansdowne, who circulated a paper in November 1916 arguing that the war would destroy civilization and calling for a return to the status quo ante bellum. In November 1917 he published his ideas in a letter to The Daily Telegraph saying that the war "will spell ruin for the civilised world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it," and calling for peace negotiations with Germany. At the other end was Keir Hardie, the Scottish socialist who became a miner at age 10, and later a union organizer and one of the founders of the Labour Party; he tried to stop the war by organizing a general strike in the belligerent countries. When another trade unionist saw the poster "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?", he said that he would reply, "I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child." Field Marshal John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force between August 1914 and December 1916, had a sister named Charlotte Despard née French, a social worker, Suffragist, vegetarian and pacifist who co-founded something called Women's Peace Crusade. One prolific intellectual who argued against the war was Bertrand Russell; he was imprisoned for his antiwar activism for half a year, though because he was an earl, his prison conditions were far better than ordinary. Another imprisoned antiwar activist was journalist E. D. Morel, hero of Hochschild's book about the Belgian Congo, who, in Russell's words, "collapsed completely, physically and mentally, largely as the result of insufficient food" during his imprisonment.

I must say that I have a great deal more sympathy for the peace activists profiled in this book who tried to stop World War I than for those mentioned in Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke, who tried to stop World War II, because World War II was a struggle of the imperfect good against the perfect evil, and in World War I none of the major belligerents were significantly more evil than the others - certainly not to a large enough degree to justify the bloodbath. (less)

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Jun 04, 2011 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21-ce, uk, war, ww-i, history

I think for many Americans this book will be something of a shocker. It tells the story of the British anti-war movement during World War I. First is the story of the enormous incompetence of those prosecuting the war; the highest ranking authority on the civil side was Prime Minister Asquith, and on the military side, the Generals French and Haig. This is a tale of enormous inhumanity, not just for the enemy, but for one's own troops as well, who were ordered to make suicide attacks by the tens...more I think for many Americans this book will be something of a shocker. It tells the story of the British anti-war movement during World War I. First is the story of the enormous incompetence of those prosecuting the war; the highest ranking authority on the civil side was Prime Minister Asquith, and on the military side, the Generals French and Haig. This is a tale of enormous inhumanity, not just for the enemy, but for one's own troops as well, who were ordered to make suicide attacks by the tens of thousands. (Sadly things were even worse on the German side. See my review of Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel.) This is a story of often told but Hochschild retells it economically as a means of establishing the broader context for the other parts of his tale.

At the heart of the book, what makes it unique in my experience, are stories of the trials and tributions of the British anti-war movement. Peopled in large part by well-meaning persons of a socialist bent, the movement was undermined and smeared by the British government who had all aspects of the national press completely under its thumb. Part of the anti-war story is about the Conscientious Objector (CO) community. I'm so glad Mr. Hochschild is getting this story out with this book, for their treatment by members of the British police authorities, who shamelessly violated their civil rights, was horrendous. Early on the COs were sent to the front anyway, where the plan was to shoot them when they refused to obey orders. Fortunately, political advocates at home prevented this from happening. They were then moved to a filthy prison in Boulogne where the rats ran over them at night, and the food was disgusting. But even this, I suppose, was better than sitting at the front listening to the big guns thunder and wondering if you'd live to see your loved ones.

Another thing Hochschild does well here is to tell the tale of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent collapse of the Czarist state in 1917 in context with how the Brits were trying to win the war. This is fascinating. (less)

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May 13, 2013 Leon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Amazon.com Review

Product Description
World War I stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain’s leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize

...more

Amazon.com Review

Product Description
World War I stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain’s leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates 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.

Today, hundreds of military cemeteries spread across the fields of northern France and Belgium contain the bodies of millions of men who died in the “war to end all wars.” Can we ever avoid repeating history?

Take a Look Inside *To End All Wars*
(Click on Images to Enlarge)

Passchendaele, the battle that cost British forces more than 260,000 dead and wounded

King George V and Queen Mary in Delhi

Emmeline Parkhurst, under arrest

John S. Clark, from circus animal tamer to underground antiwar activist

Charlotte Despard, suffragette, prison veteran, pacifist, communist, IRA supporter

A Conversation with Author Adam Hochschild

Q: In the past you’ve written mostly about issues of human rights and social justice, but now a book about the First World War—why?

A: I’ve long been obsessed and fascinated by the war, for it remade our world for the worse in almost every conceivable way. In addition to killing approximately 20 million soldiers and civilians, the war also ignited the Russian Revolution, sowed the anger that allowed Hitler to seize power, and permanently darkened our outlook on human nature and human self-destructiveness. But also I’ve always seen the war as a time when men and women faced a moral challenge as great as that faced by those who lived, say, in the time of slavery. Tens of thousands of people were wise enough to foresee, in 1914, the likely bloodshed that a war among the world’s major industrial powers would cause—and, courageously, they refused to take part.

Q: What are you trying to do in To End All Wars that makes it different from other books about the First World War?

A: Most books about any war, including this one, tell the story as a conflict between two sides. Instead, I’ve tried to tell the story of 1914–1918 as a struggle between those who felt the war was something noble and necessary, and those who felt it was absolute madness.

Q: Were there war resisters on both sides?

A: Yes. But I’ve concentrated on one country, Britain. For various reasons—a major one being that at the war’s outset Britain itself was not attacked—there was a stronger antiwar movement there than anywhere else. More than 20,000 British men of military age refused the draft, and, as a matter of principle, many also refused the non-combatant alternative service offered to conscientious objectors, such as working in war industries or driving ambulances. More than 6,000 of these young men went to prison under very harsh conditions, as did some brave, outspoken critics of the war. This is one of the largest groups of people ever behind bars for political reasons in a Western democracy—and certainly one of the most interesting. Their number included the country’s leading investigative journalist, a future Nobel Prize-winner, more than half a dozen future members of Parliament, and a former editor who would publish a clandestine prison newspaper on sheets of toilet paper.

Q: So the book is just about them?

A: Not only. I am equally intrigued by the people who fought the war, such as the generals who always thought the next battle was going to be the big breakthrough, and kept the cavalry ready to charge through the gap—which never came, of course. So my cast of characters includes both resisters and those who fought. And there are interesting ties between them. Few people know, for instance, that Britain’s commander-in-chief on the Western Front for the first year and a half of combat had a sister who was an ardent, vocal pacifist. Or that the Minister for War had close friends whose son was not only in jail as a resister but was in solitary confinement for refusing to obey prison rules. Two well-known sisters, the suffragettes Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, broke with each other so bitterly over the war that they each edited a newspaper that attacked the other.

Q: Are all of your characters well-known?

A: Not at all. Albert Rochester was a soldier who got into trouble for writing a letter to a newspaper complaining that every British officer had his own private servant. John S. Clarke was an antiwar radical, working underground—who in his youth had made his living as a circus lion-tamer. Emily Hobhouse believed the nations of Europe should be negotiating, not fighting. She evaded British government travel restrictions, went to Berlin in 1916 and talked peace terms with the foreign minister—the sole private citizen in Europe who actually traveled to the other side in search of peace. You couldn’t invent people like this.

Q: What were your sources of information?

A: When I write history, I like to hear people’s own voices, so as much as possible I relied on personal letters, diaries, memoirs and the like. But there was one additional, unexpected, rich trove of material. In 1914–1918, both civilian and military intelligence agents watched the Britain’s antiwar activists intently. They infiltrated spies into peace organizations, sometimes sent in agents provocateurs to try to get pacifists to do things they could be arrested for, and at even the smallest public antiwar meeting, one of Scotland Yard’s dozen shorthand writers would be there taking notes. These agents’ reports, even those of the agents provocateurs bragging about what they accomplished, are in Britain’s National Archives, some of them opened to public view for the first time only in the last few years.

(Photo by Spark Media)

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Feb 15, 2013 Caren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-nonfiction

I admit it: I am a "Downton Abbey" addict. After watching season two, I became curious to know more about World War I and settled on this book, which looks at the war primarily from a British perspective. This is nonfiction at its very best. No dry military history, this is more a social history of the war, full of interesting, complicated people. The author is a storyteller par excellence and has captured the conflicting emotions of the time, from ardent, patriotic hawks to the heavily spied up...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Richard Kearney rated it 5 of 5 stars

Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 is a masterful, highly readable work of scholarship that raises a host of important questions about the nature of modernity through a close examination of the event that arguably ushered in (and continues to shape, and haunt) the world we now inhabit.

Hochschild's focus is on the British experience in World War I, and he has explained in interviews that he selected Britain because it freely chose to enter the war (not...more Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 is a masterful, highly readable work of scholarship that raises a host of important questions about the nature of modernity through a close examination of the event that arguably ushered in (and continues to shape, and haunt) the world we now inhabit.

Hochschild's focus is on the British experience in World War I, and he has explained in interviews that he selected Britain because it freely chose to enter the war (not being bound by treaty obligations) and because it had a small but vigorous antiwar movement that left behind rich sources for study. As a result, and perhaps more so than in the case of other belligerent nations during the war, Britons were compelled to articulate their positions both for and against the war throughout its several years. Hochschild's story is complex, and he gives considerable attention to policy-makers, top military officials, soldiers, peace activists of various stripes, and their many opponents in the civilian population.

In the early 20th century Britain was at the height of its imperial power, and British elites and their intellectual allies promoted an ideology of racial, cultural, and class superiority to justify and rationalize the empire, while at the same time identifying these notions with a concept of progress and enlightenment, a profoundly noxious combination. But various "spectres" were haunting the empire in these years, including a growing labor and socialist movement, a vigorous feminist movement demanding suffrage, and the early stirrings of anti-colonial nationalism in several corners of the globe. Hochschild documents a growing discontent within elite circles over these movements, which to them signified moral weakness and danger, and for which the most salutary response could be found in the martial virtues.

The outbreak of war proved a source of tremendous dismay for European peace activists and socialists - such as British Labor Party parliamentarian Keir Hardie - who discovered to their horror that a majority of the working classes in all countries drawn into the conflict embraced national identity over transnational class solidarity, and he offers numerous examples to illustrate the strength and tenacity of ordinary people's commitment to rallying around their flags as the death toll mounted year after year.

Hochschild provides considerable detail about the methods and experiences of large-scale slaughter in the trenches, noting the singular importance of barbed wire and the machine gun, as well as the subsequent introduction of poison gas and the development of the tank. He is merciless on the senior military officials, who persisted beyond all evidence in insisting on the continued military usefulness of horse-mounted cavalry and who proved wholly unimaginative in their offensive campaigns, sending thousands of infantry soldiers to certain death in battle after battle that scarcely moved the front line over four years.

The stalemate, however, did not lead to much widespread questioning of policies or purposes in Britain during the war. To some extent this was the result of deliberate government policy, including a wholesale propaganda effort, widespread government surveillance, and the infiltration and sabotage of likely war opponents. Elsewhere (e.g., Russia, Austria-Hungary), the war had a far more corrosive impact on highly dysfunctional states, resulting in collapse and revolution.

Hochschild constructs his narrative largely around a colorful cast of vivid personalities, including both supporters and opponents of the war, and it is through their stories that he addresses most of his major themes, in a style that is consistently engaging even when the story he is telling may lead readers to considerable pessimism.

It is not possible to do justice to the quality of this work in a short review, but suffice it to say that To End All Wars deserves a wide readership. It will provide readers with a thought-provoking account of the First World War and make a very strong case for its central place in making sense of subsequent events in the 20th century and beyond. It may also compel readers to further study on the topic, and they will surely benefits from the many insights it offers.(less)

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Nov 19, 2012 Socraticgadfly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

A unique telling of World War I in Great Britain.

I knew that Bertrand Russell had been arrested as a conscientious objector, but knew little else about the movement in Britain in general. This book gives excellent insight into how strong the movement was, considering the degree of opprobrium it faced.

Hochschild starts well in advance of the war, so as to set up the social background for this, including disputes over the "rightness" of actions in the Boer War, the suffragette movement in Britain,...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Jack Erickson rated it 4 of 5 stars

With the centennial of onset of The Great War only two years away, Adam Hochschild's history is an excellent overview of the calamitous events of WW I and their impact on Britain.
Hochshield doesn't attempt to have his book be a comprehensive history of World War I. His focus is on the political and social undercurrents opposed to the war. He traces the protests and demonstrations of war resisters, conscientious objectors, suffragettes, pacifists, and labor movements who accurately foresaw the w...more With the centennial of onset of The Great War only two years away, Adam Hochschild's history is an excellent overview of the calamitous events of WW I and their impact on Britain.
Hochshield doesn't attempt to have his book be a comprehensive history of World War I. His focus is on the political and social undercurrents opposed to the war. He traces the protests and demonstrations of war resisters, conscientious objectors, suffragettes, pacifists, and labor movements who accurately foresaw the war as a tragedy that would engulf all of Europe (and their respective colonies around the world) and claim millions on the bloody battlefields of Belgium, France, Turkey, and Italy.
The incompetence and appalling leadership of British military officers, especially Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig and his predecessor commander-in-chief Sir John French, have been chronicled extensively in earlier history of the war. What is equally appalling is why British politicians let them remain in command despite numerous failed military strategies that costs tens of thousands to die in single days such as at the Battle of the Somme when nearly 60,000 British troops were slaughtered on July 1, 1916, almost 17,000 in the first hour. All after a massive artillery barrage that lasted days when more munitions were fired than in the last 12 months of the war. Despite the heavy bombardment, German machine guns mowed down rows and rows of advancing British soldiers until their barrels almost melted
Almost as complicit as the incompetence of British military leaders was the decision of British politicians to suborn the media to publish propaganda instead of accurately reporting on battles, strategies, hazards of trench warfare, and casualties. Some of the British propagandists were stalwart literary figures - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and John Buchan.
The madness of trench warfare also took a heavy toll on all forces. Yet British generals executed almost 400 soldiers who disobeyed orders or resisting going over the wall to die in no man's land.
Little was known about 'post traumatic stress syndrome' (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) or 'battle fatigue' (WW II). Troops suffering mental breakdown had what was called 'shell shock' but little was done to treat them or recognize the effects until after the war. In 1990, a group of British citizens began a Shot at Dawn campaign to pardon those executed for failing to follow orders.
Warfare has changed much since The Great War.
Modern wars aren't fought just between armies.
Technology has brought more horrendous weapons to the battlefield.
We have the benefit of more objective journalism.
But propaganda still exists and those who protest against wars are still deemed 'unpatriotic.'
"To End All Wars" is a sober and well written history that documents why the decision to go to war should not be left to politicians and generals.
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Jun 25, 2012 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

To End All Wars focuses primarily on the British experience during World War I, a fine choice because few other nations left a complete enough written record to assemble the kind of story this book endeavors to tell. This is not another battlefield history of tactics and maneuver. Those things have been covered well enough in any number of military histories. This book covers the human and social sides of the conflict, and its impact on the British public, and does so from two disparate perspect...more To End All Wars focuses primarily on the British experience during World War I, a fine choice because few other nations left a complete enough written record to assemble the kind of story this book endeavors to tell. This is not another battlefield history of tactics and maneuver. Those things have been covered well enough in any number of military histories. This book covers the human and social sides of the conflict, and its impact on the British public, and does so from two disparate perspectives. On one hand we get too look into the minds of the British leaders and supporters of the war, their thoughts, attitudes and opinions. On the other hand we also see the less-often reported side of the conflict, the dissenters who opposed the war and who often went to prison for their beliefs, among them the eminent Bertrand Russell.

There are a few surprises along the way, such as the ardent hawkishness of Rudyard Kipling mixed with the sorrow over the death of his son. We meet ardent suffragettes often at odds with the law who become firms supporters of the war effort at its outbreak. We meet Charlotte Despard, one of the most outspoken opponents of the war and vocal supporter of the IRA, whose brother was Sir John French, Britain's first commander in the field, and later the man sent to crush the rebellion in Ireland.

Covered in this book is the battle for the hearts and minds of the British public: the historically unprecedented propaganda machine intended to sway public opinion, and the war of surveillance and secret police conducted against the dissenters. We see the war for the hearts and minds of the soldiers too, including the paranoia that lead to such peculiar steps as Australian soldiers being billeted apart from British soldiers so the latter would not be "infected" by egalitarian ideas. We see the evolution of the attitudes of the war's supporters and foes, and of the public at large as the war progressed. Also covered is the less than equal treatment meted out to the empire's non-white subjects called upon to help prosecute the war.

All in all its a fine look at sides of the war that are rarely covered in any depth. The wiring is almost novel-like in pace and the quality of its storytelling. The human scope elevates it above the often dry statistics of conventional military histories. I highly recommend it.
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Jun 24, 2012 Franz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading this book was, at times, a depressing experience. Obedience and trust by the common soldiers masquerading as courage and folly by generals and political leaders masquerading as wisdom and good military strategy infected both sides. A war that could have been easily avoided was eagerly sought by all sides. Even though the Germans were the first to attack, the British, in their eagerness for a war, goaded the Germans to attack so that the Germans would be seen as the evil aggressors. Every...more Reading this book was, at times, a depressing experience. Obedience and trust by the common soldiers masquerading as courage and folly by generals and political leaders masquerading as wisdom and good military strategy infected both sides. A war that could have been easily avoided was eagerly sought by all sides. Even though the Germans were the first to attack, the British, in their eagerness for a war, goaded the Germans to attack so that the Germans would be seen as the evil aggressors. Everyone falsely believed that their country would emerge as the victors after only a few months of traditional warfare featuring cavalry charges by brave aristocrats and infantry attacking weak points along the front. The generals failed to recognize the lethal power of machine guns that made such traditional tactics, especially the cavalry, irrelevant.

WW I was the seminal event of the 20th century. Counterfactuals are always tricky and uncertain, but it is legitimate to ask whether so many of the subsequent events would have happened had the war not occurred. Consider especially the triumph of the Communists in Russia and the Nazis in Germany, and the continuation of even greater slaughter in WW II. We can also throw in the conflicts in the Middle East of the last few decades as well.

The book follows the careers of several people in Britain beginning in the late 19th century. On the side eager for war were the generals, administrators, propagandists, and common soldiers. On the other were the pacifists, radical labor leaders, suffragettes, and a few intellectuals who struggled to prevent the war and then, during the war, protested against it. The second group, the antiwar crowd, had no chance to influence British policy except in rare cases. What may be unique about this book is the attention it gives to the antiwar activists, who the British government saw as dangerous enough that the protesters were spied on, arrested, abused, imprisoned, and generally held in low regard by both the government and the most of the "patriotic" citizens who, by the end, were themselves so fed up with the slaughter and shortages that they expressed little joy when the war ended.

There are echos in this book of the protests movements and foolish decisions made by the political and military leaders that happened with relation to Vietnam and the Iraq invasion, both also avoidable and unnecessary wars of questionable justification. It seems as if we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again.(less)

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May 25, 2012 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: heart-of-darkness

Hochschild has many admirable qualities as a writer. For one he seems generally obsessed with the worst that humanity can do. The Slave trade, the horrors and depredations of the Congo Free State have all been addressed, and in this current book the inferno of the Great War. But rather than wallowing in cheap nihilism and shock he is equally if not even more so, intrigued by those who against the currents of their day recognized an evil, and raised a voice, even if it was a feeble voice. Here th...more

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May 05, 2012 Mark Bowman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hochschild traces the stories of British dissidents and resisters to the World War I campaign. They were small in number in the face of a massive government propaganda campaign and strong public support for the war. They were strong in courage and faced much suffering and persecution for clinging to their ideals and values. In their time they were viewed as crazy and social outcasts. Of course, from today's perspective it is easy to flip the perception of "right" and "wrong." The savagery and fu...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Nigel rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Great War (which was not that great for most participants) is covered by the author detailing major events dovetailed with stories of people from all walks of life and their differing viewpoints. I am not convinced the antiwar movement/pacifists were as important as the author wants them to be.
The author at times seems stunned that in the days of Empire ,that those who were jingoistic would be wholeheartedly be behind the war.These are minor criticisms for what on the whole is a pretty goo...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Matt Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars

There is no question that Adam Hochschild is a great writer. To End All Wars is well organized, thoroughly researched and passionately told narrative, but I cannot recommend the book without some serious qualification:

1. This book is about Great Britain's role in the war. Events such as the assassination of archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the sinking of the Lusitania, the fall of Tsarist Russia, and the US deployment to France are given passing mention and little more. Additionally, he focuses a...more There is no question that Adam Hochschild is a great writer. To End All Wars is well organized, thoroughly researched and passionately told narrative, but I cannot recommend the book without some serious qualification:

1. This book is about Great Britain's role in the war. Events such as the assassination of archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the sinking of the Lusitania, the fall of Tsarist Russia, and the US deployment to France are given passing mention and little more. Additionally, he focuses almost entirely on events in Belgium and France, giving almost no mention to campaigns in the Middle East, Asia, the Atlantic, or even the Eastern front.

2. This is not a military history of World War I in any sense. The Great War is merely a backdrop to Mr. Hochschild's analysis of some of WWI's primary personalities. He manages to explain strategies and tactics of many major engagements faced by the British during the war in Flanders, and that's really about it. While particularly adept at bringing the reader into the trench warfare experience with all its horrors and depredations, he doesn't even pretend to give a clear chronicle of every strategic shift during those years.

3. The personalities given the most attention in the book are not necessarily big decision makers. Hochschild focuses a lot of energy on minor players in the War. This isn't, by itself, a bad thing--Hugh Ambrose has made a career out of it with Band of Brothers and its follow ups. With few exceptions, however, Hochschild chooses to focus his attention on figures in the radical movements; particularly the women's suffrage, peace, and Socialist movements in Britain--movements that tended to overlap during the course of history.

4. Despite his thorough research into these personalities, the characters are remarkably archetypal. On one side of the coin are the war-mongers. They are inept, aristocratic, arrogant, and at every pass show nothing but contempt for the common man. On the other side of the coin, the ever-compassionate socialist radicals suing for peace.

5. The effect of the British radicals on the overall prosecution of the war is greatly exaggerated. Despite pages of adoring praise for their work (much of which shows an enviable clarity of conscience), World War I was ended by force of arms. The US's belated entry into the war (with men, weapons, and supplies), after all other combatants were so completely exhausted, demoralized and finally broke the back the Germans. While there is a strong argument that the radical anti-war movement was correct in its assessment that the cost of the war could not be justified, the impact of those radicals simply did not end World War I.

If taken narrowly as a history of radicalism and social change in Britain during the period of WWI, the To End All Wars is a good read. It's Hochschild's attempt attempt to expand the role and accomplishments of these radicals beyond their actual impact gives the book a clear feeling of being little more than leftist revisionism.(less)

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Jan 17, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: european-history

I love Hochschild and I would be a lot more positive if I didn't expect so much from him. The end of King Leopold's Ghost makes you think he has a sequel in mind about ED Morel, Rodger Casement and the movement against WWI in Britain. That isn't this book at all. Morel is only dealt with briefly and in an almost dismissive fashion, which is puzzling since Hochschild seems to adore him so in KLG.

This is more of a history of Britain's involvement in WWI in general with some attention payed to resi...more

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Jan 06, 2012 Hillery rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really good book that focuses on the moral questions around WWI. It is not a traditional history with a chronological description of battles, etc. It focuses on Britain, specifically British anti-war protestors as well as the political leaders and senior military officials executing the war, and what both were thinking and feeling. The author relies on diaries, private papers, etc. that were made public over the past few years. He also gives a good background of events/alliances that led to the...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hochschild's objective is to demonstrate how pacifists, particularly those in England, influenced World War I. Other than choosing the tactic in the first place, Hochschild largely fails to meet his objective. There simply were not enough pacifists with enough money and clout to significantly influence the British government. It for most of the war sustained the support of the British people. Pacifists were unable to stop the war and its slaughter. He describes in detail the rather futile effort...more Hochschild's objective is to demonstrate how pacifists, particularly those in England, influenced World War I. Other than choosing the tactic in the first place, Hochschild largely fails to meet his objective. There simply were not enough pacifists with enough money and clout to significantly influence the British government. It for most of the war sustained the support of the British people. Pacifists were unable to stop the war and its slaughter. He describes in detail the rather futile efforts of such pacifists as Bertrand Russell, Charlottee Despard and the Pankhurst mother and sisters. Also, he notes that 6,000 men were sent to prison for refusing to serve in the military. Very tellingly, he describes the execution of three of them.

Popular support was partially the result of government propaganda. A secret unit of leading British writers including Kipling, Wells and Hardy was formed to create propaganda. The many articles and fictional books be John Buchan were very effective in garnering war support.

What Hochschild does achieve is a readable and excellent strategic history of the war with great sympathy for the common soldier. Prior to 1914 the British officer staff's last battles were in the Boer War (1880-81) where cavalry was effectively used. They were unprepared for what Hochschild calls industrial war, machine guns, barbed wire and poison gas. Douglas Haig, the ranking British general, believed, almost to war's end that mounted forces had a role. The staff's ignorance, bordering on the criminal, resulted in trench warfare and the deaths of 885,000 British and about 1,400,000 Frenchmen. Fifty thousand British were killed in the battle of Ypres in 1914, 310,000 lost their lives at Passchendaele in 1917 and almost 20,000 were killed on the first day of the battle of Somme.

Officers were recruited and appointed from the aristocratic class. Their high mortality almost wiped out a generation's future leadership.

The war ended when the striking, rioting and starving German people no longer supported the war. Hochschild also describes how the decisions of the victors and the Treaty of Versailles led to WWII where even more millions were killed than in WWI.
Hochschild further believes that if one event should be changed in the 20th Century it should be the avoidance of WWI.
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May 28, 2011 Michele Weiner rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hochschild tells the story of the British effort in WWI by telling the smaller stories of a number of individuals, including both prime ministers and common soldiers, activists for and against the war, conscientious objectors and former suffragettes. He describes a world hoping for war--a whole continent eager for war which they regarded positively as a test of their mettle, an adventure, an experience not to be missed. The British were totally caught up in war fever, and men from every level of...more Hochschild tells the story of the British effort in WWI by telling the smaller stories of a number of individuals, including both prime ministers and common soldiers, activists for and against the war, conscientious objectors and former suffragettes. He describes a world hoping for war--a whole continent eager for war which they regarded positively as a test of their mettle, an adventure, an experience not to be missed. The British were totally caught up in war fever, and men from every level of society joined the military and went off to battle marching and singing and behaving as if it were all a lark. Anti-war activists were reviled, conscientious objectors jailed in horrific conditions. Executions of men with shell shock were relatively commonplace in the British army, and the stupidity of the British generals was legendary. The men struggled and fought, and refused to blame their leaders, at least until the end of the war, when mutinies became commonplace. After the Russian Revolution, the Germans who had fought on the Eastern front mutinied, as did the sailors who refused to leave port. The French were completely unable to participate in the war for a time when their soldiers refused to fight, leaving the British to carry the burden on the Western front alone. Even British soldiers began to be reluctant to carry on as before, and the British increased repression at home and kept soldiers sorely needed in Europe at home in case of a revolution.

It is the author's thesis that despite the fact that Germany began the conflagration by invading neutral Belgium, that they were the first to use chemical weapons and bomb civilian populations, the Allied powers also deserved a share of the blame for their reckless secret alliances and their eagerness for war. He believes that if the United States hadn't joined the war, the parties would have exhausted themselves and they would have been forced to negotiate a peace that was more sensible than the Versailles Treaty. On the other hand, he notes that the U.S. came into the war as a direct result of the German decision to carry on unrestricted submarine warfare, which resulted in many American deaths.

The war ended abruptly for the Germans, whose civilians had been aware of the successful and innovative last offensive of the war, which brought them within miles of Paris after years of stalemate. But by 1918, the Russians had revolted and left the war. The Germans on the Eastern front were infected with the socialist bug, and began to mutiny, as did the sailors. The French soldiers also questioned their leaders and mutinied, causing them to virtually withdraw from the war at the end and leaving the British to fight on alone until the Americans could arrive. When the American showed up, they appeared a super men to the exhausted, starving European armies.

The end of the war seemed abrupt and incomprehensible to the German army and the civilian population. Their last innovative offensive had been hugely successful, and suddenly, their leaders surrendered. They were largely unaware of the defeats that followed American entry, and unaware that Ludendorff had gone mad. They blamed their civilian leaders for giving up, and with the vengeful treaty that followed, the path to WWII was clear to many contemporary leaders and visionaries.

The author also lists the innovations of WWI, including tanks, barbed wire, chemical weapons, propaganda campaigns, genocide, forced labor, and so on that were perfected in WWII. Very interesting. (less)

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May 03, 2011 Readersentertainment rated it 5 of 5 stars

History may not be your favorite subject, but I am sure that you understand its importance...
...it teaches us what not to recreate and what to avoid in our future endeavors. History is comprised of a series of lessons, each based in the actions and beliefs of those at the center of conflict or change (or stagnation, as the case may be) in any given era. History has much to teach us.
That begins to explain the importance of To End All Wars, the newest release from Adam Hochschild, an accomplish...more
History may not be your favorite subject, but I am sure that you understand its importance...
...it teaches us what not to recreate and what to avoid in our future endeavors. History is comprised of a series of lessons, each based in the actions and beliefs of those at the center of conflict or change (or stagnation, as the case may be) in any given era. History has much to teach us.
That begins to explain the importance of To End All Wars, the newest release from Adam Hochschild, an accomplished author and activist, which involves an investigation of World War I from a vantage point drastically different from your average history textbook. This work delves into territory beyond the blood and brutality of that early twentieth century war-time period. It explores with great intensity the personal struggles of both rebellious pacifists and militant supporters, each fighting for a cause in which they passionately believe.
To End All Wars is not a collection of figures, statistics and strategies of engagement. Rather, it is an accurate portrait of the characters and personalities behind the conflict, as well as those in its midst. This is a very real and very human vantage point that has great relevance in our own time. Hochschild's book, as a historical depiction of World War I, is by no means deficient, nor is it discrepant. It is, however, different from the writing (on this subject) that precedes it, for To End All Wars is less an account of a historical event or period and more an account of human struggle backed by strong values and loyalties. The suffering that was so much a part of this period is captured in living, active non-fiction. It is a story, I am sure, that Hochschild felt needed to be told.
To End All Wars would make an excellent addition to any history lover's bookshelf, but readers of general non-fiction will also gain a lot from this reading, even if they have no particular interest in the specific period. Of course, those obsessed with World War I will absolutely enjoy every page of this excellent, well-written exploration of the people at the center of a conflict so devastating and far-reaching that it was called “the war to end all wars.”(less)

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May 02, 2011 Barbara Mitchell rated it 5 of 5 stars

I received this book from Amazon Vine, chosen because although I've read much about World War II and have long known its cause was directly related to the first world war, I didn't actually know much about World War I. I also have a personal connection in that my husband's father was in the British Army, a veteran of the Boer War and World War I who apparently was emotionally as well as physically wounded in both. Now I understand his story much better.

One caveat I must point out is that Hochsch...more I received this book from Amazon Vine, chosen because although I've read much about World War II and have long known its cause was directly related to the first world war, I didn't actually know much about World War I. I also have a personal connection in that my husband's father was in the British Army, a veteran of the Boer War and World War I who apparently was emotionally as well as physically wounded in both. Now I understand his story much better.

One caveat I must point out is that Hochschild wrote this book with an agenda. He believes WW I was unnecessarily provoked, accomplished nothing but the destruction of Europe and loss of a generation of young men, and that it caused WW II. For that reason, his book relates British military issues before and during the war. The concentration here is not on battles, military maneuvers, etc. but predominantly the people, the hawks and the anti-war protestors. Even though he is admittedly biased in his narration, he does have the facts to back up his beliefs and therefore the book is well worth reading.

One revelation that bothered me, but didn't surprise me, was that when Great Britain desperately needed the type of high grade optical instruments (binoculars, gunsites, etc.) that they had previously purchased from Germany, they approached the enemy through a neutral country and set up a deal to buy them. In return, Germany got the rubber it desperately needed for tires but hadn't been able to smuggle through the British blockade. Astounding!

Another point is that simple barbed wire invented by an Illinois farmer was the best military weapon used in the war. That explains why for two years plus the two sides sat in waterlogged trenches in Flanders unable to advance. It was only the invention of tanks that overcame this obstacle.

There is an excellent discussion of why Germany felt compelled to conduct a U-boat (submarine) war on merchant ships despite the knowledge that it would surely bring the U.S. into the war. Also, the effect of the Russian Revolution on the war.

I found this to be a very readable book and fascinating in its dissection of British Army intransigence in the face of changing warfare. I highly recommend To End All Wars. (less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Betty rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-and-social-science, top-favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 18, 2013 T.R. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was thrilled when I first saw Hochschild had a new book out. I was less thrilled when I realized it was about World War I. I soldiered on though, knowing that Hochschild would find enough threads there to weave a story of resistance. Like most of Hochschild's narratives, the story here is not so much about war or oppression, but about those who come together to resist.

Though Hochschild is not the only one to tell the story, the Christmas Truce in 1914 is told within the larger context and hop...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This is not a book for the faint of heart. It's a chronicle of the bloodiest war of the 20th century, and encompasses the hollow reasons for starting the war, the hysteria of the working class in rushing to uniform, the gross incompetence of the generals in charge, the amazing and ridiculous bravery of the troops, and the idealism and courage of the anti-war movement. The book shows us how easily we're duped into war fever, and without drawing any obvious parallels allows us to see how very litt...more

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May 12, 2011 loafingcactus rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011, library-kindle

Better than most of the well-trod ground of 20th century war history, the book gave me a sense of what was going on in the culture at the time of World War I. We can see from movies what trench warfare was, but we cannot see what the troops were thinking. The book gets more into that. What was particularly interesting was how particular bits of news affected the pro and anti-war communities. It wasn't as straight-forward as it might seem--for example negative war news might encourage people to d...more Better than most of the well-trod ground of 20th century war history, the book gave me a sense of what was going on in the culture at the time of World War I. We can see from movies what trench warfare was, but we cannot see what the troops were thinking. The book gets more into that. What was particularly interesting was how particular bits of news affected the pro and anti-war communities. It wasn't as straight-forward as it might seem--for example negative war news might encourage people to dig into the war all the more--and propagandists sometimes got it wrong. This continues to this day of course, and Hochschild surely means the book to be a commentary on the present day.

The move to industrialized warfare was a large change, but the book does oversell it as an unprecedented changed. The longer train of history is a good argument for that, but just in the short-term the book glosses over the place of the American Civil War in the history of war. The wars of the Hellenic world as well as of the American Civil War are still taught in the war colleges; they must have some relevance to the current world of industrialized warfare. There was however a huge break from was British forces winning easily over recent colonial uprisings (again, never mind that American bit). World War I in a certain sense wasn't a new thing, it was a throwback to an earlier era. Where I live, you can still visit trenches from the American Revolution. At World War I they were new in how they were used, but they weren't that new.

What I found most interesting about this book was the interlinking of both the history of the humans and of the equipment. World War I is a place where things from different eras interacted in strange ways. The leaders of the European land war lunched with the Ghandi family in South Africa. The other tangled relationships are revealed with delicious storytelling, so it would be a spoiler to write too much of them. The first tank had a little door to let out the homing pigeon (for some reason this absurdity has been throwing me into laughter for the last week). Soldiers could be moved in such large masses that it no longer made any sense- the book points out that if you have a column of soldiers that stretches the length of a day's march (and all the parties did) then it is very difficult to move it the length of a days march. How do you even give that order and what does it mean? The conversion to industrialized warfare had so many more issues than the usual picture of horses charging machine guns.
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Sep 25, 2012 Caroline rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: world-war-1

I enjoyed this book, but I think it suffers from a lack of focus, of not entirely being sure what it sets out to be. At times it reads like a straightforward narrative of the war, and at other times it sets out to portray the lives of those who took positions on either side of the war, for and against. I think if it had concentrated fully on the latter it would have been a better book.

This book follows military men and suffragettes, conscientious objectors, deserters, decorated soldiers, politic...more

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Jul 29, 2012 Michael Cremin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

This is my third book by Adam Hochschild. He is an excellent writer whose history leans toward the social. His first book, King Leopold's Ghost, told the story of the Belgium occupation of the Congo, and the European movement to free the Africans from the bonds of colonial exploitation. His second book, Bury the Chains, told the story of the end of slavery in England. Hochschild, like all the best writers of narrative history, has a gift for making the past into a compelling story. I find, as I...more This is my third book by Adam Hochschild. He is an excellent writer whose history leans toward the social. His first book, King Leopold's Ghost, told the story of the Belgium occupation of the Congo, and the European movement to free the Africans from the bonds of colonial exploitation. His second book, Bury the Chains, told the story of the end of slavery in England. Hochschild, like all the best writers of narrative history, has a gift for making the past into a compelling story. I find, as I read his books, I am eager to turn each page so I can find out what happens next. History can often be dry. This author makes it live and breathe.

To End All Wars is the story of World War I as seen from the point of view of the British. Unlike other histories of the Great War, the author pays as much attention to those who resisted the madness as to those who actually fought in the battles. Thousands of men and women went to jail, lost their homes and jobs, or were sent to the front because of their belief that the war was wrong. Many of them died. The author also describes--at that time, at least--the unimaginable death tolls the war exacted on that generation, as well as the great lengths the British government went through to lie to the public about what was actually happening. I learned a great deal about the Boer War as well, something I admit I did not know much about.

Most interesting to me was reading about the political Left at the turn of the last century. People complain about liberals now! Today's Left has nothing on this bunch. Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate for President of the United States in 1916--got a million votes while he was in jail! The Socialists were an actual political force in England, in Germany, in France, and--of course--in Russia. It was fascinating to read about the connections between women's suffrage, anti-imperialism, the anti-war movement, and the rise of Soviet Communism. The next time you hear someone call Barack Obama a Socialist, you can join me in laughing. As the man said in The Princess Bride, "I don't think that word means what you think it means."

This book was well-written and quite moving. I have read quite a few books about World War I, but never one like this. Highly recommended. (less)

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Jun 24, 2011 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was a really interesting look at the political climate in Europe before and during World War I. It goes beyond the battles and astronomical losses of life to look at the events that led up to the war and the political and military thinking that led to the rise of trench warfare that locked the Western Front in a stalemate for four years.

The book deals with two groups - the generals and politicians plotting, scheming and fighting the war and the (mostly) civilian group who opposed the...more This book was a really interesting look at the political climate in Europe before and during World War I. It goes beyond the battles and astronomical losses of life to look at the events that led up to the war and the political and military thinking that led to the rise of trench warfare that locked the Western Front in a stalemate for four years.

The book deals with two groups - the generals and politicians plotting, scheming and fighting the war and the (mostly) civilian group who opposed the war and the existing political structure. At times, it seems oversimplified; those on the political right were in favor of imperialism and the war, those on the the left supported socialism and opposed the war. Later in the book, some people's positions change, but I would have liked to see some more diversity in the two broad groups. The book does a good job detailing how the war ripped families apart based on political differences and gives the reader a behind the scenes look at the civilian population, which is something that a lot of war history books gloss over.

The book is also mainly focused on the European countries and their empires. The American involvement is very briefly discussed in the last 50 to 75 pages, so if you're looking for a history of the American experience in World War I, this is not the book for you.

Overall, I liked this book. I think it presented a very different take on World War I and I understand a lot more about the history, politics and warfighting strategy that existed in the run up to and during the war. I also really liked that it showed the people who were against the war and treated them not as cowards, but as people who disagreed with the ruling party politically and were often very harshly punished for their beliefs. I saw a lot of parallels between their treatment and the jingoistic way that Fox News and some other media outlets talk about people who opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2002/2003. It's a good reminder that the vast majority of people who oppose war (in general) are not anti-military or don't support the troops and that often, the people who are most outspoken about opposing a war are the people doing the most to help and support the men that fight and their families.(less)

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