4.0
To End All Wars
ByPublisher Description
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?
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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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesTo End All Wars Reviews
4.0
“This is an interesting way to tell the story of World War I. Rather than centering politicians, generals, or battlefield strategy (at least not exclusively), Adam Hochschild focuses on the British men and women who opposed the war—and paid a heavy price for doing so.
The book covers an enormous amount of ground, and this is both its strength and its weakness. There are so many figures moving in and out of the narrative that the story can feel scattered at times. The sections devoted to Bertrand Russell and the Pankhurst family were by far the most engaging, and I found myself wishing Hochschild had lingered with them longer. Had the book been more tightly anchored to a smaller group of characters, this easily could have been a five-star read.
Readers should approach this book knowing they are stepping into a serious history lesson. For me, that was a highlight, not a drawback. After reading The Guns of August last year—which left me more confused than informed—this felt far more accessible. Hochschild covers the entire war while keeping the human cost front and center, making the material easier to absorb.
What struck me most is how rarely wars are told from the perspective of those who resist them. I kept thinking how valuable a similar book would be on the French or German anti-war movements. War narratives almost always glorify strategy, sacrifice, or victory, but this book reminds us that dissent is just as much a part of history—and often a braver one. There are no winners in war, only varying degrees of loss.
Hochschild’s writing is clear, humane, and often moving. This is a book I think people should read now, especially in a moment when the world seems disturbingly eager to repeat its worst mistakes.”
About Adam Hochschild
ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the author of eleven books. King Leopold’s Ghost was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was To End All Wars. His Bury the Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN USA Literary Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Other books by Adam Hochschild
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