Adam Hochschild

World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In this book, the author brings the era to life as never before while focusing on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics alongside its generals and heroes.

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide. The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned...