Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1941-1960

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Today's Nuclear Freeze demonstrations bring to prominence one of America's most important social movements. Rebels Against War, updating and expanding Lawrence S. Wittner's highly praised 1969 classic, describes and analyzes the American peace movement over the past half century. The book draws upon extensive research, including examination of the records of the major peace groups and interviews with their leaders. New material places the last twenty years⁠—from SANE and Women's Strike for Peace to the Freeze movement⁠—in historical context.

Genres: Nonfiction

340 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1969

About the author

Raised in Brooklyn, NY, Lawrence Wittner attended Columbia College and, in 1967, received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Thereafter, he taught at Hampton Institute, at Vassar College, at Japanese universities (under the Fulbright program), and (starting in 1974) at SUNY/Albany, where he rose to the rank of Professor History before his retirement in 2010. A prolific, award-winning writer, he is the author of nine books and has edited or co-edited another four. He has also written hundreds of articles and book reviews for scholarly journals, as well as for popular publications such as the Huffington Post. His latest published books are his memoirs (Working for Peace and Justice) and a satirical novel about corporatization and rebellion at an American public university (What’s Going On at UAardvark?). A long-time activist in social movements, he is currently a national board member of Peace Action (the largest peace organization in the United States) and the executive secretary of the Albany County Central Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

Reviews

[John Senner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dense book - 306 pages of text with every page 5-20% filled with footnotes, followed by 57 pages of bibliography and index. The title says it all. There is scant reference to Mennonites. Both Martin Luther King Jr and Bayard Rustin got their protest chops in the peace movement which morphed into a big overlap with the civil rights movement. The peace movement withered during WWII until Hiroshima, when it took on a strong anti-nuclear aspect.