I really enjoyed this book. It takes us through the years leading up to the War to the end of the War by looking at multiple British people. It includes military and political leaders, socialists, women's rights advocates, imperialists and anti-imperialists, and just about everyone in between. The overall tone of the book is that the anti-war people were the real heroes and that the pro-war people were generally not smart enough to see how bad either they were or the war was. I learned a great deal about many people whom I did not know a lot about. I would recommend this because it is a great overview of the time period without being a military history. This engaging book reads more like a novel than a work of history, and indeed it focused on the life stories of particular individuals and families in the UK who worked for and against the war. One fun fact that I must have known at some point but clearly forgot: it was the Germans who organized and paid for the train that took Lenin & the Bolshevik leadership from Switzerland to the Baltic Sea, where they were able to make it to Petrograd and start the revolution. It was their strategy to take Russia out of the war.
Ran out of stars for this page-turner of history book! Fascinating and beautifully written!
—olenolemassa
World war 1 books are not for me, it was torture just to finish tne darn book
—ptlkintana
Would have preferred more info about antiwar activity outside of England.
—Nicole
THIS BOOK DEALS WITH THE MORE REAL ASPECTS OF THE WAR .IT WAS GOOD ALSO!
—vasavi
Very interesting indeed.
—Veggieman
