The war itself was a colossal waste of human life on all sides. It really exposes the arrogance of the English military and civilian leadership at the time. " A unique perspective on WWI from the British effort and the barbaric and feudal approach taken in the execution of the war effort. Simply written, yet intelligent and approachable. " You just need to know about WWI, and this is a great place to begin. " Different perspective of the war from Britain's viewpoint and the anti-war movement during the period. Some great personal stories and families that I wasn't too familiar with and a nice supplemental book that could be added to any WW I library. " Very well-written summary of the "second war" in England during World War I, the battle in England between anti-war and pro-war factions. A problem of expectation more than writing. The only downside was that I was looking for more firsthand accounts 'from the trenches' if you will, and this book isn't focused on that. " Well written and interesting in that it follows interesting personal storylines before, through and after the war.
I've always been curious to know why it seems a person has to be a socialist to say, "you know, I don't think this war is a very good idea.""
Especially when you have inept leaders who, even in 1917 were ordering soldiers to rise up out of their trenches and charge across no mans land only to get mowed down by machine guns. Namely that WW1 was started for not very good reasons, didn't finish properly leading to WW2 just 20 years later, and spent a lot of lives that were unnecessary. The author is a socialist, which I don't subscribe to, however I think he had some good points. 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? Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other. 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. 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. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation.
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