![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This simplistic calculus - pro-war = traditionalism = bad anti-war = modernism = good - has already derailed many a book, but Hochschild is too good a writer to fall into that trap. The conflict pitted the bulk of the British population - who supported the war, cheered the suspension of civil liberties and eagerly consumed all manner of alarmist propaganda - against a small group of pacifists and socialists who opposed the war, pleaded for tolerance, and remained passionate defenders of social justice. To End All Wars is about the clash of world views that occurred as traditionalism and modernism jostled for primacy in wartime Britain. When I teach the First World War to my students, I often ask them one of those impossible, unanswerable questions to jump-start the debate: Is it more convincing to see the war as the last gasp of the old order, or the first breath of the new? Of course, it's both - but after reading Adam Hochschild's absorbing new book, I am more persuaded than ever that the Great War fits better at the close of the 19th century than the dawn of the 20th. ![]()
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