Peace Messenger

To End All Wars: A Story of Love and Rebellion, 1914-1918

by Adam Hochshild
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / 2011

"In this deeply moving history of the so-called Great War, those opposing its mindless folly receive equal billing with the politicians, generals, and propagandists obdurately insisting on its perpetuation. Implicit in Adam Hochschild's account is this chilling warning: once governments become captive of wars they purport to control, they turn next on their own people."--Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

Prophetic Stringency: Commonweal's Tribute to Ron Osborn's Work

Reviewing Anarchy and Apocalypse, the managing editor of Commonweal magazine writes:

Commonweal readers will be familiar with Osborn’s clear-eyed, well-honed analysis (most recently in “Still Counting: How Many Iraqis Have Died?” February 11). This book reveals the foundation of his analysis of headline events. While neither anarchistic (in the colloquial sense of advocating violence or extreme libertarianism) nor apocalyptic (in tenor or proclamation), there is a stringency in Osborn’s thinking that is prophetic and liberating.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

''In Hitler's Germany, a Lutheran pastor chooses resistance and pays with his life. . . Eric Metaxas tells Bonhoeffer's story with passion and theological sophistication, often challenging revisionist accounts that make Bonhoeffer out to be a 'humanist' or ethicist for whom religious doctrine was easily disposable. . . Metaxas reminds us that there are forms of religion -- respectable, domesticated, timid -- that may end up doing the devil's work for him. --Wall Street Journal

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet Spy
by Eric Metaxas
Thomas Nelson / 2010

The Bomb: Howard Zinn's Last Confession

The Bomb
by Howard Zinn

City Lights / 2010

Publication of this new book by the late historian and peace activist Howard Zinn, who died in January 2010, coincides with the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Excerpts from a review by Jonah Raskin, posted at MichaelMoore.com, 4 August 2010:

America's Path to Permanent War

Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War
by Andrew J. Bacevich
Metropolitan Books / 2010

Tom Englehardt calls Andrew Bacevich's new book "the single best source for understanding how Washington came to garrison the planet, intervene regularly in distant lands, and turn war-making -- and not even successful war-making at that -- into an American norm."