This isn’t an unbiased account. There is a bias here that announces itself early and often: The first World War was an unnecessary one, and the leaders who led their nations to slaughter were at best, foolish and irresponsible and at worst, sadistic and unforgiveable. Also, the men and women who followed their consciences and said no to war were heroic in their convictions and often paid a heavy price for their stance. What makes this such a compelling book, though, is not generalities. Rather, it’s the specifics of the individual stories that make it so compulsively readable. People like Charlotte Despard, the Pankhursts-- suffragette Emmeline and her daughters, Sylvia and Christabel, the socialist MP Keir Hardie, and the philosopher/mathematician Bertrand Russell are just a few of the people who figure prominently and animate this extraordinary retelling of one of the formative and most destructive events of the 20th Century.