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
All Men Are Enemies – Richard AldingtonBeelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson – George I. Gurdjieff, 1949All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque, 1928The Americanization of Emily – William Bradford Huie, 1964Ashe of Rings – Mary Butts novel, 1926Bid Me To Live – H.D. novel, 1960Captain Jinks, Hero – Ernest Crosby, 1902Catch-22 – Joseph Heller, 1961A Doctor's Journal Entry For 6 August,1945 - Vikram SethCat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut science fiction novelCelestial Matters – Richard Garfinkle science fiction novelCompany K – William March novelDead Yesterday – Mary Agnes Hamilton novel, 1916Death Of A Hero – Richard AldingtonDespised and Rejected – Rose Allatini novel 1918A Fable – William Faulkner, 1954, World War IThe Empty Drum - Leo Tolstoy, 1887A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway, 1929For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway, 1940The Forever War – Joe Haldeman science fiction novelFrom Here to Eternity – James Jones novelGenerals Die in Bed – Charles Yale Harrison novelThe Good Soldier Svejk – Jaroslav Hašek novelInvolution & Evolution – Joss Sheldon novelJohnny Got His Gun – Dalton Trumbo novel, 1938Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline novelLay Down Your Arms! – Bertha von Suttner novelLooking Good – Keith Maillard novelLegend of Galactic Heroes – Tanaka Yoshiki Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes – Keith Maillard novelLysistrata – Aristophanes play, 411 BCEThe Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer novelNon-Combatants and Others – Rose Macaulay novel, 1916Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War – Evadne Price novel, 1930On the Beach – Nevil Shute novelThe Once and Future King – T. H. White, 1958Paths of Glory – Humphrey Cobb, 1935Quiet Ways – Katharine Burdekin novel, 1930 The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane novel, 1895Regeneration – Pat BarkerShabdangal – Malayalam novel, 1947The Short-Timers – Gustav Hasford novelSlaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut science fiction novelThe Sorrow of War – Bảo Ninh novel, 1990The Thin Red Line – James Jones novel, 1962The Things They Carried – Tim O'Brien, 1990Three Soldiers – John Dos Passos novel, 1921, World War IThe Tin Drum – Günter Grass novelThe Train Was on Time – Heinrich Böll novel, 1949Two Women – Alberto Moravia novel, 1958Under Fire – Henri Barbusse novel, 1916The Unknown Soldier – Väinö Linna novel, 1954Voyage to Faremido – Frigyes Karinthy novel, 1916- "War" - Ludwig Renn novel, 1928.
- War Porn - Roy Scranton novel, 2016.
- "The War Prayer" – Mark Twain short story, c.1910War with the Newts – Karel Čapek, novel 1936The Wars – Timothy Findley novel, 1977We That Were Young – Irene Rathbone novel, 1932Why Are We in Vietnam? – Norman Mailer novel, 1967Why Was I Killed? – Rex Warner novel, 1943
Non-fiction
Addicted to War – Joel Andreas, 1991, 2002- Old Man at the Bridge - Ernest Hemingway May 1938An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era – Charles DeBenedetti, 1990The Armies of the Night – Norman Mailer non-fiction novel, 1968Autobiography:The Story of my Experiments with Truth – Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1927The Bloody Traffic – Fenner Brockway, 1934Born on the Fourth of July – Ron Kovic autobiography, 1976The Causes of World War Three – C. Wright Mills, 1958Choosing Peace: A Handbook on War, Peace, and Your Conscience – Robert A. Seeley, 1994The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War – Paul R. Ehrlich, Carl Sagan and Donald Kennedy, 1984Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians – Chris Hedges, 2008The Complaint of Peace – Desiderius Erasmus, 1517The Conduct of the Allies – Jonathan Swift, 1711The Conquest of Violence – Bart de Ligt, 1937Cry Havoc! – Beverley Nichols, 1933Disenchantment – C. E. Montague, 1922The Education of a Christian Prince – Desiderius Erasmus, 1516Einstein on Peace – edited by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden; preface by Bertrand Russell, 1960Ends and Means – Aldous Huxley essays, 1937Fate of the Earth – Jonathan Schell, 1982The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now – Jonathan Schell, 1998Good-Bye to All That - Robert Graves, 1929Hiroshima – John Hersey account of the bombings, 1946Human Smoke – Nicholson BakerIf the War Goes On … – Hermann Hesse, 1971In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter – Gordon C. Zahn, 1981The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War – Frederick Downs, 1978The Kingdom of God is Within You – Leo Tolstoy, 1894The Inevitable Revolution – Leo Tolstoy, 1909Krieg dem Kriege aka War Against War – Ernst Friedrich, 1924The Last Weapon and its sequel The Weapon Unsheathed – Theodora Wilson Wilson, 1916The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820 – Jill Liddington, 1989Miami and the Siege of Chicago – Norman Mailer non-fiction novel, 1968New Cyneas – Émeric Crucé, 1623Newer Ideals of Peace – Jane Addams, 1907No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran – Murray Polner, 1971Nonviolence: The history of a dangerous idea – Mark Kurlansky, 2006Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe – Graham Allison, 2004Nuclear Weapons: The Road to Zero – edited by Joseph Rotblat, 1998Pacifism in Europe to 1914, Peter Brock, 1972Pacifism in the Twentieth Century – Peter Brock and Nigel Young, 1999Pacifism in the United States – Peter Brock, 1968Peace Is Possible: Conversations with Arab and Israeli Leaders from 1988 to the Present – S. Daniel Abraham, Bill Clinton, 2006Peace Signs: The Anti-War Movement Illustrated – James Mann, editor, 2004Peace with Honour – A. A. Milne, 1934A People's History of the United States – Howard Zinn, 1980Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch – Immanuel Kant essay, 1795The Politics of Jesus – John Howard Yoder, 1972The Power of Non-Violence – Richard B. Gregg, 1934The Root Is Man: Two Essays in Politics – Dwight Macdonald, 1953Scapegoats of the Empire – Lt. George Witton memoir, 1907Science, Liberty and Peace – Aldous Huxley, 1946The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger – Jonathan Schell, 2007The Struggle Against the Bomb 1 - One World or None: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement through 1953 – Lawrence S. Wittner, 1993The Struggle Against the Bomb 2 - Resisting the Bomb: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement, 1954-1970 – Lawrence S. Wittner, 1997The Struggle Against the Bomb 3 - Toward Nuclear Abolition: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement, 1971 to the present – Lawrence S. Wittner, 2003Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain, 1933The Third Morality – Gerald Heard, 1937Three Guineas – Virginia Woolf, 1938Conscience for Change, reprinted as The Trumpet of Conscience – Martin Luther King Jr., 1968Voices Against War: A Century of Protest – Lyn Smith, 2009War and Democracy – Paul Gottfried, 2012War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning – Chris Hedges, 2003War Is a Lie – David Swanson, 2010War Is a Racket – former U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler speech, 1933 and pamphlet, 1935Warheads to Windmills: Preventing Climate Catastrophe and Nuclear War ''– Timmon Wallis, 2024We Will Not Cease – Archibald Baxter memoir, 1939Which Way to Peace? – Bertrand Russell, 1936White Flash, Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb – L. Vance-Watkins and A. Mariko, eds., 1995Why Didn't You Have To Go To Vietnam, Daddy? – Steve Wilken, Starving Writers Publishing, 2009Why Men Fight – Bertrand Russell, 1916Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace – Judith Hand, 2003 Worthy of Gratitude? Why Veterans May Not Want to be Thanked for Their Service in War – Camillo Mac Bica, Gnosis Press, 2015Writings Against Power and Death'' – Alex Comfort, 1994