To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, by Adam Hochschild, is a well researched and entertaining work about the political and civil unrest created by the First World War.
This is a book less about the battles, although they are here, and more of how people were impacted by four years of carnage. A special emphasis is placed upon Conscientious Objectors, or COs, who were often religious or socialist in orientation. They were often imprisoned, and in some cases, drafted into the army so they could be executed for failure to obey orders at the front.
Far and away, this is the most interesting part of this book, as the story of COs are not told in most histories of World War I. In this sense, Hochschild’s book is vital.
No comments:
Post a Comment