To End All Wars (Hochschild) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
In his previous works, on subjects as diverse as the Belgian Congo and the victims of Stalinism, Hochschild has distinguished himself as a historian “from below,” as it were, or from the viewpoint of the victims. He stays loyal to this method in “To End All Wars,” concentrating on the appalling losses suffered by the rank and file and the extraordinary courage of those who decided that the war was not a just one.... We read these stirring yet wrenching accounts, of soldiers setting off to battle accompanied by cheers, and shudder because we know what they do not. We know what is coming, in other words.... This is a book to make one feel deeply and painfully, and also to think hard.
Christopher Hitchens - New York Times Book Review


Hochschild writes sharp portraits of the many men and women, some of them warriors and some of them doves, who come under his microscope, and he is fair to them all. His depiction of life in the trenches is so vivid that some readers may have difficulty stomaching it, as is also true of his account of the awful battles at the Somme and Passchendaele; his ultimate judgment of “the war’s madness” is fully earned by the evidence he presents. “To End All Wars” is exemplary in all respects.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post


(Starred review.) WWI remains the quintessential war-unequaled in concentrated slaughter, patriotic fervor during the fighting, and bitter disillusion afterward, writes Hochschild. Many opposed it and historians mention this in passing, but Hochschild, winner of an L.A. 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. 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. Sylvia worked with, and was probably the lover of, Keir Hardie, a Scotsman who rose from poverty to found the British Labor party. Except for Bertrand Russell, famous opponents are scarce because most supported the war. Hochschild vividly evokes the jingoism of even such leading men of letters as Kipling, Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and John Galsworthy. 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


Mary is a serious lawyer, married with two kids, whose husband is a perennial mama's boy incapable of grocery shopping on his own. Mixed in with the trials and tribulations of the protagonists are humorous vignettes from the lives of some of their other friends and acquaintances—many of whom
Library Journal


The lives of the author’s many characters dovetail elegantly in this moving, accessible book.... An ambitious narrative that presents a teeming worldview through intimate, human portraits.
Kirkus Reviews