Cynthia Wachtell, “War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914” (LSU Press, 2010)

Cynthia Wachtell, “War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914” (LSU Press, 2010)

My favorite book as a teenager (and in fact the only book I ever read as a teenager) was All Quiet on the Western Front. I liked it mostly for the vivid scenes of trench warfare. Teenage boys love that stuff (or at least I did). But even then I recognized that it was essentially an anti-war book. It was hard to miss: the protagonist, Paul, has a pretty nasty time of it in the trenches, and he gets killed at the end. In the years that followed I somehow got the impression that All Quiet was essentially the first real anti-war book. Before WWI, I thought, everyone who wrote about war glorified it. As Cynthia Wachtell shows in War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914 (Louisiana State University Press, 2010), I was just dead wrong about this. In American letters anti-war sentiment abounded. Many of the leading lights of American lit wrote anti-war tracts, and some of them were remarkably “modern” (those by Ambrose Bierce are particularly astonishing, and I highly recommend them). Wachtell does a masterful job of uncovering many of these neglected works, putting them in historical context, and establishing that there was, in fact, an American anti-war tradition. This is an excellent, eye-opening book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Episoder(1625)

Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

Scholars have long viewed intelligence as the preserve of nation states. Where the term ‘private sector intelligence’ is used, the focus has been overwhelmingly on government contractors. As such, a c...

17 Apr 1h 2min

Andrew W. M. Smith, "Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in Modern France" (Manchester UP, 2026)

Andrew W. M. Smith, "Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in Modern France" (Manchester UP, 2026)

In 1971, the French government announced a massive extension of its military base on the Larzac plateau in southern France. Land was to be expropriated from 107 farms around the small town of La Caval...

16 Apr 1h 3min

John Bechtold, "U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)

John Bechtold, "U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)

In U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space (Taylor & Francis, 2024), John Bechtold examines how the US military understands information and the media as a contested terrain. ...

12 Apr 1h 2min

Thorsten Gromes, "Sustaining Peace After Civil War: Insights from 48 Recent Cases" (Springer, 2026)

Thorsten Gromes, "Sustaining Peace After Civil War: Insights from 48 Recent Cases" (Springer, 2026)

Sustaining Peace After Civil War: Insights from 48 Recent Cases (Springer, 2026) examines one of the most important questions in peace research: What leads to enduring peace after civil wars, and wha...

8 Apr 41min

Andrew Thomas Park, "Sarah Wambaugh and the Plebiscite: The Turbulent History of a Democratic Alternative to War" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Andrew Thomas Park, "Sarah Wambaugh and the Plebiscite: The Turbulent History of a Democratic Alternative to War" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

In Sarah Wambaugh and the Plebiscite: The Turbulent History of a Democratic Alternative to War (Cambridge UP, 2026) Dr. Andrew Park tells the story of the rise and fall of the plebiscite, once seen as...

7 Apr 1h 3min

Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)

War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take on new roles, cultivate new social networks, and ...

5 Apr 52min

Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, "The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2025)

Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, "The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2025)

Between May 1 and May 22, 1863, Union soldiers marched nearly 200 miles through the hot, humid countryside to assault and capture the fortified city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Upon its arrival, the ar...

4 Apr 50min

Isabelle Held, "Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies" (Duke UP, 2026)

Isabelle Held, "Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies" (Duke UP, 2026)

Bullet bras, bazookas, bombshells, bikinis. In Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Isabelle Held challenges the usual narratives of how war technologies enter do...

3 Apr 52min

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