To End All Wars: A Story of Protest and Patriotism in the First World War

In this brilliant new work of history, Adam Hochschild follows a group of characters connected by blood ties, close friendships, or personal enmities, illustrating how the war exposed the deep divisions between them.

Key Highlights:

• Brother and Sister at Odds: A striking contrast between a brother, a career soldier, and his sister, a committed pacifist, whose views on the war could not have been more diametrically opposed.
• A Politician's Dilemma: The politician tasked with sending young men who refused conscription to prison, while his godson was one of those very men.
• Divided Suffragette Sisters: Two suffragette sisters, one passionately supporting the war, and the other equally passionately opposing it.

Through these divided families, Hochschild paints a vivid picture of Britain at a pivotal moment in history—poised between the optimism of the Victorian era and the dark shadows of Auschwitz and the Gulag. It is a portrait of a divided country, fractured by the seismic upheaval of the Great War and its aftermath.