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War By Other Means: The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation Who Revolutionized Resistance
Pacifists who fought against the Second World War faced insurmountable odds—but their resistance, philosophy, and strategies fostered a tradition of activism that shaped America right up to the present day.
In this provocative and deeply researched work of history, Akst takes readers into the wild, heady, and uncertain times of America on the brink of a world war, following four fascinating resisters -- four figures who would subsequently become famous political thinkers and activists -- and their daring exploits: David Dellinger, Dorothy Day, Dwight MacDonald, and Bayard Rustin. The lives of these diverse anti-war advocates--a principled and passionate seminary student, a Catholic anarchist, a high-brow intellectual leftist, and an African-American pacifist and agitator--create the perfect prism through which to see World War II from a new angle, that of the opposition, as well as to show how great and lasting their achievements were.
The resisters did not stop the war, of course, but their impact would be felt for decades. Many of them went on to lead the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the two most important social stands of the second half of the twentieth century. The various World War II resisters pioneered non-violent protest in America, popularized Gandhian principles, and desegregated the first prison mess halls. Theirs is a story that has never been told.
In this provocative and deeply researched work of history, Akst takes readers into the wild, heady, and uncertain times of America on the brink of a world war, following four fascinating resisters -- four figures who would subsequently become famous political thinkers and activists -- and their daring exploits: David Dellinger, Dorothy Day, Dwight MacDonald, and Bayard Rustin. The lives of these diverse anti-war advocates--a principled and passionate seminary student, a Catholic anarchist, a high-brow intellectual leftist, and an African-American pacifist and agitator--create the perfect prism through which to see World War II from a new angle, that of the opposition, as well as to show how great and lasting their achievements were.
The resisters did not stop the war, of course, but their impact would be felt for decades. Many of them went on to lead the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the two most important social stands of the second half of the twentieth century. The various World War II resisters pioneered non-violent protest in America, popularized Gandhian principles, and desegregated the first prison mess halls. Theirs is a story that has never been told.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published December 6, 2022
About the author
Daniel Akst
11 books19 followersA native New Yorker, Daniel Akst is a well-known journalist who has worked at the LA Times and Wall Street Journal and now writes a monthly column in the Sunday New York Times. He also writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal culture pages, and has appeared in many other publications, including American Heritage, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, Civilization, Technology Review, the Washington Monthly, and on both public radio and television. His first book, Wonder Boy (Scribners), chronicled the eye-popping ZZZZ Best fraud perpetrated by teenage entrepreneur Barry Minkow, and was named one of the 10 best of 1990 by Business Week. He is also the author of The Webster Chronicle published by BlueHen in October 2001.
Akst is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who spent 13 years in Los Angeles before moving to the Hudson Valley, where he lives with his wife and two sons.
Akst is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who spent 13 years in Los Angeles before moving to the Hudson Valley, where he lives with his wife and two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 20, 2022
WWII Like You've Never Seen It Before. This is an account primarily of WWII and specifically a few particular people and their associates within the war - and these are people who you may have heard of, but likely never heard of their actions within the WWII period. As the description states, some of these people became quite famous indeed *after* WWII for their actions during the Vietnam / Civil Rights era - but those actions were originated when they were 20 years younger, during the trials and travails that history now knows as World War 2. As an anarchist who strives toward pacifism himself, learning of these people - several of whom I had never heard of before, and the others of whom I had never heard of this side of before - was utterly fascinating, and indeed actually eye opening, as even I had never heard of the philosophy of personalism before reading this book. Now, I intend to research it further.
The *singular* detriment to this book is that while it is clear in the narrative that the book is quite well researched indeed... the Advance Reader Copy of this text I read had barely any bibliography at all, clocking in at just 5% of the overall text when a minimum of around 20% is much more common for even barely-researched-at-all texts.
Still, even if the publisher doesn't correct this flaw at actual publication, this is absolutely a worthy read and one that anyone who wishes to discuss the events and impacts of WWII needs to study in order to have a more complete picture of that era. Very much recommended.
The *singular* detriment to this book is that while it is clear in the narrative that the book is quite well researched indeed... the Advance Reader Copy of this text I read had barely any bibliography at all, clocking in at just 5% of the overall text when a minimum of around 20% is much more common for even barely-researched-at-all texts.
Still, even if the publisher doesn't correct this flaw at actual publication, this is absolutely a worthy read and one that anyone who wishes to discuss the events and impacts of WWII needs to study in order to have a more complete picture of that era. Very much recommended.
June 11, 2023
Judicious skimming is necessary and at times this was dry, but an compelling topic for sure. I thought the author took the right approach in treating the people with respect even as he pointed out the naivete of the ideas. What drew me to the book was Dorothy Day "the conservative anarchist" but activist Bayard Rustin was the most interesting character and I read his chapters thoroughly. I also found the chapter on Civilian Public Service camps for conscientious objectors particularly fascinating - they subjected themselves to all kinds of medical experiments and humiliations. A more in-depth look at the psychology that allows a person to demonstrate such self-abnegation would be interesting. This book really drags in the middle with all the different organizations, campaigns and journals, and so much name dropping its bizarre - if you don't know much about the period like me, its easy to become lost.
July 12, 2023
This engaging book is a masterful portrayal of a pivotal, yet understudied chapter in American history. Journalist Dan Akst illuminates the courageous journey of four key pacifists—David Dellinger, Dorothy Day, Dwight MacDonald, and Bayard Rustin—and connects their struggles to the upheaval of the 1960s. His book gives us a “missing link” in the history of progressive change. Akst demonstrates how his protagonists’ lonely battle against the tide of war in the 1940s equipped them to endure years of social and political wilderness in the 1950s, only to re-emerge as leading figures in major social justice movements. These engaging stories are presented with the author’s characteristic wit and eye for meaningful detail. I could not recommend this book more highly.
December 28, 2022
A study of pacifists of World War 2 with especially good portraits of Bayard Rustin and Dorothy Day
March 12, 2024
I really enjoyed this history of pacifists leading up to and during World War II, the one war where even most antiwar advocates yield the point. From David Dellinger to Dorothy Day to Bayard Rustin an AJ Muste, this history includes a full pantheon of pacifists during this period. Many of them laid the foundations for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and even during the 1930s and 1940s were actively engaged in efforts to oppose segregation (from restaurants to prisons) as well as antiwar activism. Many of them were motivated by religious beliefs and the conviction that it was wrong the kill under any circumstances; the Union Eight went so far as to even refuse registering for the draft despite the fact that, as seminar students, they would be exempted from conscription; and many opposed even domestic drafts that freed up men for the U.S. Army. The book also includes a chapter on the Civilian Public Service (CPS) camps. Their arguments are also clear-headed, especially given the alternatives they proposed and the information they had at the time. Why should the U.S. fight with imperialist and colonizing Britain against imperialist Germany when Britain owned half the world, including India? Why not permit something other than an unconditional Axis surrender if it would include letting Jewish people live in other countries? They did not propose nonaction, only nonviolence.
I was also surprised by references to heroes of the left as libertarians or even libertarian-sympathetic, including David Dellinger and Dorothy Day. Dellinger, of the Union Eight and Chicago Seven, even started a printing cooperative called The Libertarian Press . Day was also described at times as libertarian, and the descriptions of her as wanting freedom to reign over the Catholic Worker's Movement combined with personal authoritarianism sound familiar. Other libertarians working against war and for peace mentioned in this book included Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice who later went to work for The Cato Institute (Chapter 20) and members of The War Resisters League who are described as "strongly libertarian" (including Henry Leroy Finch, Jr, Igal Rodenko, and James Peck) who supported Bayard Rustin's employment there when he was isolated from so many leftist movements and his former mentor AJ Muste (Chapter 19). Former U.S. Rep. Jeannette Rankin, whom I didn't realize was still active and antiwar during the Vietnam War, was also profiled in the book.
I was also surprised by references to heroes of the left as libertarians or even libertarian-sympathetic, including David Dellinger and Dorothy Day. Dellinger, of the Union Eight and Chicago Seven, even started a printing cooperative called The Libertarian Press . Day was also described at times as libertarian, and the descriptions of her as wanting freedom to reign over the Catholic Worker's Movement combined with personal authoritarianism sound familiar. Other libertarians working against war and for peace mentioned in this book included Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice who later went to work for The Cato Institute (Chapter 20) and members of The War Resisters League who are described as "strongly libertarian" (including Henry Leroy Finch, Jr, Igal Rodenko, and James Peck) who supported Bayard Rustin's employment there when he was isolated from so many leftist movements and his former mentor AJ Muste (Chapter 19). Former U.S. Rep. Jeannette Rankin, whom I didn't realize was still active and antiwar during the Vietnam War, was also profiled in the book.
February 28, 2023
Akst writes a detailed history of the Pacifist movement that grew after the first World War into an influential force in the early days of the Civil Rights push after the second World War. Those involved are a mix of religious men and women who object to war as a violation of their beliefs, Communists who want justice for all the disadvantaged, libertarians, and socialists who wanted a different structure to society. Some were quite conservative in their political views, others more liberal. The mix ebbed and flowed as the years passed, as the Depression came and went, as World War Two started and as Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into the war. Many objectors went to prison. There they started non-violent protests to end segregation in the federal prisons. As students of the Union Theological Seminary in New York they practised non-violent sit-ins to end segregation in restaurants. They were fractious and dedicated. The treatment of blacks was abhorrent to them, particularly the segregation of the armed forces at a time when death was hovering. They were persistent and they brought change, at a high cost to themselves but they did not waver. Akst has filled in a gap in U.S. history that bore revisiting.
July 31, 2023
I was disappointed by this book. I read a positive review of it but I didn’t expect the author to compulsively and repeatedly remind us that the people he profiled were wrong, naive, truculent, and otherwise deluded in their pacifist stance. Ok, you think they were incorrect. Great. Move on.
Also, although the book is ostensibly about four specific people, he intertwined their stories with so many other people that I lost track of the main four subjects’ lives. The book is in turns chronological and topical, so there isn’t really a clear narrative thread.
The book was definitely informative, but the author did a poor job of being an impartial narrator and attempted to include too much.
Also, although the book is ostensibly about four specific people, he intertwined their stories with so many other people that I lost track of the main four subjects’ lives. The book is in turns chronological and topical, so there isn’t really a clear narrative thread.
The book was definitely informative, but the author did a poor job of being an impartial narrator and attempted to include too much.
February 20, 2024
2.5/5. Informative but flat and scattered. Certain chapters retained my attention, like anything on Bayard Rustin and the peace-nonviolence movement following WWII. But everything else seemed entangled and jumbled from the start. Certain descriptive language was also questionable, certainly around homosexuality and effectiveness of objection in prison settings. Nevertheless it is worth the read for the understanding of nonviolence and CO history - and certainly for digging deeper into grassroots, theological, moral movements of peace.
February 2, 2023
We tend to think of resistance to war as being a 1960's Vietnam War event but this book informs us of all the activity against World War II. It is written in an engaging and informative manner which makes it hard to put down. It's fascinating to discover that it wasn't just the "American Firsters" who were against the war. Well researched and an an excellent writing style!
April 27, 2024
I've often heard that "there were pacifists and antiwar activities even in/before WWII", and often wondered what the story of all that was. Who were these pacifists, how did they resist a war so universally considered "a good war", what became of them? This history is well-written, kept my attention throughout, and, yes, answered all those questions. They were heroes too, and in the end they 'formed the pivot of the US Left from a previous focus on economics and labor--at best--and its current tendency to focus on race, environment, and yes anti-war' (my paraphrase of one of the book's conclusions). Some of their leaders helped instill "Ghandian" nonviolence into political leaders worldwide.
Its a story that really needs to be more widely known and understood...and its a great read too.
Its a story that really needs to be more widely known and understood...and its a great read too.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews