List of books with anti-war themes

Books with anti-war themes have explicit anti-war messages or have been described as having significant anti-war themes or sentiments. Not all of these books have a direct connection to any particular anti-war movement. The list includes fiction and non-fiction, and books for children and younger readers.

Fiction

• A Fable – William Faulkner, 1954, World War One
• All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
• The Americanization of Emily – William Bradford Huie
• Bid Me To Live – H.D. novel, 1960^[1]
• Captain Jinks, Hero – Ernest Crosby, 1902^[2]
• Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
• Cat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut science fiction novel
• Celestial Matters – Richard Garfinkle science fiction novel
• Company K – William March novel
• Dead Yesterday – Mary Agnes Hamilton novel, 1916^[3]
• Despised and Rejected – Rose Allatini novel, (published under the name A. T. Fitzroy) 1918 ^[4][5]
• A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
• For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
• The Forever War – Joe Haldeman science fiction novel
• From Here to Eternity – James Jones novel
• Generals Die in Bed – Charles Yale Harrison novel
• The Good Soldier Svejk – Jaroslav Hašek novel
• Johnny Got His Gun – Dalton Trumbo novel, 1938
• Lay Down Your Arms! – Bertha von Suttner novel
• Lysistrata – Aristophanes play, 411 BCE
• The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer novel
• Non-Combatants and Others – Rose Macaulay novel, 1916^[3]
• Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War – Evadne Price (as Helen Zenna Smith]] novel, 1930
• On the Beach – Nevil Shute novel
• The Once and Future King by T. H. White, 1958^[6]
• Regeneration by Pat Barker
• The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane novel, 1895
• Shabdangal – Malayalam novel, 1947
• The Short-Timers – Gustav Hasford novel
• Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut science fiction novel
• The Thin Red Line – James Jones novel
• The Things They Carried – Tim O'Brien, 1990
• The Tin Drum – Günter Grass novel
• The Train Was on Time (Der Zug war pünktlich) – novel by Heinrich Böll, 1949
• The War Prayer – Mark Twain short story, c.1910
• The Wars – Timothy Findley novel, 1977^[7]
• Two Women – Alberto Moravia novel, 1958
• Three Soldiers – John Dos Passos novel, 1921, World War One
• Under Fire – Henri Barbusse novel, 1916^[8]
• Voyage to Faremido – Frigyes Karinthy novel, 1916^[9]
• War with the Newts – Karel Čapek, novel 1936^[10]
• We That Were Young – Irene Rathbone (1892–1980) novel, 1932^[11]
• Why Are We in Vietnam? Norman Mailer novel, 1967
• Why Was I Killed? (retitled Return of the Traveller in the US) – Rex Warner Novel 1943^[12]

Non-fiction

• Addicted to War - Joel Andreas, 1991, 2002
• An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era – Charles DeBenedetti, 1990
• The Armies of the Night – non-fiction novel by Norman Mailer 1968.
• Autobiography:The Story of my Experiments with Truth – Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1927^[13]
• The Bloody Traffic – Fenner Brockway, 1934.^[14]
• Born on the Fourth of July – Ron Kovic autobiography, 1976
• The Causes of World War Three – C. Wright Mills, 1958^[15]
• Choosing Peace: A Handbook on War, Peace, and Your Conscience – Robert A. Seeley, 1994
• The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War – Paul R. Ehrlich, Carl Sagan and Donald Kennedy 1984.
• Collateral Damage : America's War Against Iraqi Civilians – Chris Hedges, 2008.
• The Complaint of Peace – Desiderius Erasmus, 1517.^[16]
• The Conduct of the Allies - Jonathan Swift 1711
• The Conquest of Violence – Bart de Ligt, 1937.^[17]
• Cry Havoc! – Beverley Nichols, 1933.^[14]
• Disenchantment - C. E. Montague, 1922. ^[18]
• The Education of a Christian Prince – Desiderius Erasmus, 1516.^[16]
• Einstein on Peace – Edited by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden. Preface by Bertrand Russell, 1960.^[14]
• Ends and Means – Aldous Huxley essays, 1937.^[14]
• Fate of the Earth – Jonathan Schell, 1982
• The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now – Jonathan Schell, 1998
• Hiroshima – John Hersey account of the bombings, 1946.
• Human Smoke – Nicholson Baker.^[19]
• If the War Goes On … – Hermann Hesse, 1971^[20]
• In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter – Gordon C. Zahn, 1981.^[13]
• The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War – Frederick Downs, 1978
• The Kingdom of God is Within You – Leo Tolstoy, 1894
• The Long Road to Greenham : Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820 – Jill Liddington, 1989.
• Miami and the Siege of Chicago – non-fiction novel by Norman Mailer, 1968.
• New Cyneas – Émeric Crucé, 1623.
• Newer Ideals of Peace – Jane Addams, 1907^[21]
• Nonviolence: The history of a dangerous idea – Mark Kurlansky, 2006.
• No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran – Murray Polner, 1971
• Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe – Graham Allison, 2004
• Nuclear Weapons: The Road to Zero – 1998 book edited by Joseph Rotblat.
• Pacifism in the United States Peter Brock, 1968.^[14]
• Pacifism in Europe to 1914 (1972), Peter Brock.^[14]
• Pacifism in the Twentieth Century – Peter Brock and Nigel Young, 1999.
• Peace Is Possible: Conversations with Arab and Israeli Leaders from 1988 to the Present – S. Daniel Abraham, Bill Clinton, 2006.
• Peace Signs: The Anti-War Movement Illustrated – James Mann, editor, 2004
• Peace with Honour – A. A. Milne, 1934.^[14]
• The Politics of Jesus – John Howard Yoder, 1972
• Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch – Immanuel Kant 1795 essay
• A People's History of the United States – Howard Zinn, 1980.
• The Power of Non-Violence – Richard B. Gregg, 1934.^[14]
• The Root Is Man: Two Essays in Politics – Dwight Macdonald, 1953^[22]
• George Witton memoir, 1907
• Science, Liberty and Peace – Aldous Huxley, 1946.
• The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger – Jonathan Schell, 2007.
• Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, 1933.^[23]
• The Third Morality – Gerald Heard, 1937.^[14]
• Three Guineas – Virginia Woolf, 1938.^[24]
• The Trumpet of Conscience AKA Conscience for Change – Martin Luther King, 1968^[13]
• Voices Against War: A Century of Protest – Lyn Smith, 2009.^[25]
• War Against War by Ernst Friedrich (1894–1967), 1924^[26][27]
• War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning – Chris Hedges, 2003
• War Is a Lie David Swanson 2010
• War Is a Racket – former U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler speech, 1933 and pamphlet, 1935
• We Will Not Cease – Archibald Baxter memoir, 1939.
• Which Way to Peace? – Bertrand Russell, 1936.^[14]
• White Flash, Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb – L. Vance-Watkins and A. Mariko, eds., 1995
• Why Didn't You Have To Go To Vietnam, Daddy? – (Steve Wilken) Starving Writers Publishing 2009
• Why Men Fight – Bertrand Russell, 1916.^[14]
• "Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace" - Judith Hand, 2003
• Writings Against Power and Death – Alex Comfort, 1994.

Anthologies of Anti-War Writing

• Instead of Violence: Writings by the Great Advocates of Peace and Nonviolence throughout History – edited by Arthur Weinberg and Lila Shaffer Weinberg, 1963.^[13][28]
• The Pacifist Conscience – edited by Peter Mayer, 1966.^[13]
• Peace is the Way : writings on nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation - edited by Walter Wink ^[29]

Juvenile fiction

• Children of the Book – Peter Carter, 1982^[30]
• The Clay Marble – Minfong Ho novel, 1991
• Ender's Game – Orson Scott Card novel, 1985
• Fallen Angels – Walter Dean Myers novel, 1988
• Habibi – Naomi Shihab Nye novel, 1997
• I Had Seen Castles – Cynthia Rylant, 1993
• Soldier's Heart: A Novel of the Civil War – Gary Paulsen novel, 1998
• The Butter Battle Book – Dr. Seuss, 1984
• Sunrise over Fallujah – Walter Dean Myers, 2008
• War Horse – Michael Morpurgo, 1982
• When the Horses Ride By: Children in the Times of War – Greenfield, Gilchrist poems and illus., 2006

Juvenile non-fiction

• Ain't Gonna Study War No More: The Story of America's Peace Seekers – Milton Meltzer, 2002
• Lines in the Sand: New Writing on War and Peace – Hoffman and Lassister, eds. essays, stories, poems, 2003
• Operation Warhawks: How Young People Become Warriors – Terrence Webster-Doyle, 1993
• Some Reasons for War: How Families, Myths and Warfare Are Connected – Sue Mansfield, 1988
• A Little Peace – Barbara Kerley, 2007
• Paths to Peace: People Who Changed the World – Jane Breskin Zalben, 2004
• Peace One Day – Jeremy Gilley, 2005

See also

• List of peace activists
• List of anti-war songs
• List of anti-war plays

Notes

Anti-war movement and peace Opposition to wars or aspects of war Afghan War Iraq War Landmines Military action in Iran Military intervention in Libya Military taxation Nuclear armament War on Terror Sri Lankan Civil War Vietnam War World War I World War II Second Boer War American Civil War War of 1812 Agents of opposition Anti-war organizations Anti-nuclear organizations Anti-war movement Bed-In Central Park be-ins Conscientious objectors Counterculture Draft evasion Human Be-In List of peace activists Peace commission Peace churches Peace and conflict studies Peace camp Peace education Peace movement Peace walk Teach-in War resisters War tax resisters Related ideologies Ahimsa Anarcho-pacifism Anarcho-punks Anti-imperialism Antimilitarism Anti-nuclear movement Appeasement Christian anarchism Direct action Finvenkismo Hippie Isolationism Non-interventionism Nonviolence Nonkilling Pacificism Pacifism Satyagraha Simple living Socialism Soviet influence on the peace movement Media and cultural Books Films International Day of Non-Violence International Day of Peace Monuments and memorials Plays Songs Symbols Peace journalism Peace News Promoting Enduring Peace List of places named Peace Countries Canada Germany Israel Netherlands Spain United Kingdom United States