World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Hochschild is a master at chronicling how prevailing cultural opinion is formed and, less frequently, how it's challenged.' Maureen Corrigan, NPR s Fresh Air 'This is the kind of investigatory history Hochschild pulls off like no one else. thoroughly researched, wide-ranging in its curiosities, and always compassionate and sympathetic' '.it is the day-to-day details about individual lives that makes this account stand out.what makes this such a good read is that, throughout, the focus is on private as much as public lives, and especially on how war sowed deep, often irreconcilable divisions within families.' -BBC History Magazine fast-moving and entertaining' -Sunday Times

But, as Hochschild, the author of terrific books on the Belgian Congo and the slave trade, points out in this lively narrative, the British peace movement during the First World War was one of the bravest and most outspoken in history. `We think of anti-war movements as a recent phenomenon, born amid the controversies of Vietnam and Iraq. By contrast, Hochschild paints equally vivid, painful portraits of now obscure civilians and soldiers who waged a bitter, often heroic, and, Hochschild admits, unsuccessful antiwar struggle.' -Publishers' Weekly Hochschild vividly evokes the jingoism of even such leading men of letters as Kipling, Conan Doyle, H.G. Except for Bertrand Russell, famous opponents are scarce because most supported the war. Sylvia worked with, and was probably the lover of, Keir Hardie, a Scotsman who rose from poverty to found the British Labour party. These mostly admirable activists include some veteran social reformers like the formidable Pankhursts, who led violent prosuffrage demonstrations from 1898 until 1914, and two members of which enthusiastically supported the war while one, Sylvia, opposed it, causing a permanent, bitter split.

Times Book Award for Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, has written an original, engrossing account that gives the war's opponents (largely English) prominent place.

Many opposed it and historians mention this in passing, but Hochschild, winner of an L.A. 'World War I remains the quintessential war - unequalled in concentrated slaughter, patriotic fervor during the fighting, and bitter disillusion afterward, writes Hochschild.

To end all wars by adam hochschild