- Published: 28 February 2023
- ISBN: 9781612199245
- Imprint: Melville House
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 384
- RRP: $75.00
War By Other Means
The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation Who Revolutionized Resistance
- Published: 28 February 2023
- ISBN: 9781612199245
- Imprint: Melville House
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 384
- RRP: $75.00
The stories of the brave people in this book are a profoundly important, and unduly ignored, part of modern American history. Daniel Akst tells them with grace and scope, showing how the convictions of his characters carried them through their whole lives, and into some of the most important battles for social justice of our time.
--Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost
Daniel Akst has written an engaging and eloquent book about American pacifists in times that tried their world-views. He tells a morally complicated, compelling story that will intrigue especially anyone interested in 20th century American intellectual and political history.
--Mitchell Cohen, former co-editor of Dissent; author of The Politics of Opera
Dan Akst liberates the history of World War II-era pacifism from familiar “Greatest Generation” narratives. Buoyed by anti-authoritarianism and nonviolent theology, antiwar activists—ranging from David Dellinger and Dorothy Day to Bayard Rustin and Dwight MacDonald—passionately opposed the conflict. With lucid prose, Akst explains how their resistance planted the seeds for the modern progressive movement.
--Betsy Wood, author of Upon the Altar of Work