To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 - Adam Hochschild

In this engrossing narrative about World War I, Adam Hochschild writes vividly not just about the politicians, generals, and propagandists who pushed for war. He also chronicles the stories of a number of civilians and soldiers who waged a principled if unsuccessful antiwar struggle. To End all Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28) portrays the rush to battle and the inability to stop it as the product largely of entrenched mindsets. He compellingly contrasts the passions and principles of the dissenters with the deeply embedded commitment to war and empire of the war-makers and the majority of the population.