Her name was "Waterloo Sunset," and she wasn't a girl (or a boy for that matter) but rather a song by the Kinks, and I fell in love just the same....
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Phoebe, January 4, 2013 (view all comments by Phoebe)
I had always believed that World War I shouldn't have happened. This book bears that belief out. It also enumerates the numerous ways all sides used and misused technology and opportunity. Most of all, it paints a clear picture of the horror of trench warfare. It also shows that numerous people knew the Versailles Treaty was bad - as one put it, 'A peace to end peace.'
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SandyPP, August 4, 2012 (view all comments by SandyPP)
I thought I knew a lot about World War I but this engrossing book disabused me of that notion. Looking at the war from a British point of view, Hochschild focuses on families with both war supporters and non-supporters, e.g. the suffragist Pankhursts, and also the abuse of the conscientious objectors. The way new technology impacted the fighting was also fascinating; the tank and machine gun were new, yet the generals were still basing their strategies on hand-to-hand combat. Highly recommended.
nootkagirl, January 3, 2012 (view all comments by nootkagirl)
The story of WW1 is my obsession and I can't seem to get enough of the story of the massacre of a generation of young men across Europe. The devastating statistics of the war are breathtaking but this book does a thoughtful job of connecting real stories of conflicts within families of historical figures in the suffragette struggle and others containing both pacifists and generals forging ahead with the war machine. This book goes beyond the statistics of the destruction leaving you with the heartbreak from a conflict that appeared inevitable but did not have to happen. It reminds us how that continues to be repeated in war today where the people who think the wars don't fight them. Adam Hochschild writes beautifully and I was led to read his memoir "Half the Way Home" which is a terrific read also.
"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings WWI to life as never before, focusing on the long-ignored moral drama of its critics, alongside its generals and heroes. A brilliant new history of the Great War that raises the eternal question of why such a terrible war was ever fought.
"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
World War I stands as one of historys most senseless spasms of carnage. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the wars critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britains leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britains most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other.
Today, hundreds of military cemeteries spread across the fields of northern France and Belgium contain the bodies of millions of men who died in the “war to end all wars.” Can we ever avoid repeating history?
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