the state of new jersey that you members of the jury who have so faithfully served, upheld the great traditions of american justice and jus the disin -- and justice in new jersey. my book is all about the great tradition of american justice as it intersected the lives of six african-americans in the 1950s. ..

how >> booktv in the nonfiction tenth. that was local author kathy k p knepper reading from her story jersey justice:the story of the trenton six. we bring you more coverage with adam hochschild whose book on world war i is called "to end all wars". here are some books being published this week. four star general and former secretary of state colin powell on leadership, it worked for me in life and the leadership. in creditor nation, corporate criminal, hijacking of america, documentary filmmaker charles ferguson argues public officials have allowed the financial crimes to be committed without

consequences. political commentator and journalists deane jr. contends that hyper in individualism is the cause for political dissatisfaction in our divided political parks. the battle for the american idea in an age of discontent. in the first book in a new series about the fundamentals of american government eleanor clift contributing editor for newsweek magazine and that use either, or social policy analyst for congressional quarterly explain how the united states elects the president in selecting a president. in the fate of the species leaders and what the human race may cause its extinction and how we can stop it, read the dell, executive editor of scientific american argues that the earth is going through the mass extinction event with hundreds of species dying on a daily basis. he offers technological solutions to stop the continuous

extinctions. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors on booktv and booktv.org. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the third annual gaithersburg book festival. i am head book signer of politics and prose. gaithersburg is the first city to celebrate and support the cultural arts. we're pleased to bring you the event free of charge thanks to the generous support of our sponsors. a couple quick announcements. for the consideration everyone here please silence any devices that make any kind of malaise. to keep improving this event we

need your feedback. surveys are available here at the info booth and online at our web site. please take a couple of minutes to fill one out and submit it. adam hochschild will be signing books after this presentation. copies of his book on sale in the politics and prose tend to. there will be a microphone in the center of the room and after his talk adam will be engaging questions from the audience. as evidence in his award winning book to bury the chains, adam hochschild's nonfiction explorations into history had a narrative sweep that impact great novels. the book he is here to talk about the day "to end all wars," "to end all wars: a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914-1918," succeeds similarly with the captivating story some

characters are well known but many ordinary people swept up in the drama of war. as all of you are gathered in the james michener pavilion i am incited to hear adam hochschild talk about "to end all wars". it really is an amazing book that honors the sacrifice of those who fought the also honors the courage of those who stood up for what they believe in to end that war. it is my honor to introduce adam hochschild. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here and to have a chance to talk about my book "to end all wars" with you. i am going to be showing some slides from it. but you know, i can barely see what is on the screen because of the -- because the sun is on the screen. let me see if i can -- you can

see it okay. all right. you may have to tell me what is on there because i can't see it. anyway, for me, writing a book is a matter of following an obsession and also of figuring out what the source of that obsession is and for as long as i can remember, i have been obsessed with the first world war. there are good reasons to be assessed by this war. some twenty million people were left dead. military and civilian which is six times the death toll of the previous and largest war europe has ever known bleach the napoleonic wars. it lost any the larger number of wounded. hy also had a personal reason

for my long time obsession with this war which is an uncle of mine by marriage fought in it. if any of you have read my first book you will have met him of the imperial russian air force that is in the center of this photo. and the cross around his neck that he is wearing is the highest medal awarded by imperial russia. it crosses the order of st. george and gave the bearer a personal private audience with the czar at any time of the day or night. a privilege not in much use after 1917. but there are other reasons i have always been drawn to this war. one of them is that it swept away forever the world of

emperors and empresseses that dominated europe up to that time. this is kaiser wilhelm ii of germany marching with his six sons in a parade and look at the hats. here is the kaiser's wife, the empress and her daughter. you can't claim that after 1914 nobody ever wore hats like that again but there was something about the world before 1914 that had a kind of imperial self-confidence that produced those hats. another thing that has always fascinated me about the first world war was it was a war built like most wars are all multiple illusions. one was that victory would be quick and easy. these are berlin students marching off to fight in august

of 1914. that month kaiser wilhelm told his troops you will be home before the leaves fall from the trees. here they are getting into german soldiers getting in a railroad car heading to the front. on the side it says to paris. french troops seeing off with equal the enthusiasm, getting into their train from the front and on the side, it says to berlin. of course the war was not quick and easy as wars seldom are. the second illusion is the illusion in 1914 that you would be shooting at the enemy but they would not be shooting at you. how else would you explain the

uniforms that millions of french infantrymen in the battle in 1914 and these were not addressed uniforms but the combat uniforms. bright red caps, bright red pants, millions of soldiers dressed that way. the third illusion i think is cavalry was going to play a great role in this war as it had throughout history. french cavalry in this picture, indian cavalry that the british brought to the western front, the germans famous lanterns from germany invaded france and belgium in 1914 and they did so with 40,000 soldiers on horseback. eight cavalry division. what were they thinking in the days of barbwire and the machine gun? which of course ended it the

days of heroic glorious cavalry charges for ever and the result was on the western front where most of the killing took place, the line between the two armies was roughly frozen in place for almost the entire war. for example in 1915, the year that saw probably more than a million troops on both sides killed or wounded on the western front in northern france and belgium, a year that saw several enormous allied attacks to capture territory from the germans, the allies over the course of the war and those million total casualties gained eight square miles of ground and instead of the los glorious cavalry charges they found themselves fighting an absolutely devastated landscape,

they found this is the result of hundreds of millions of artillery shells fired over the course of the war. they found themselves living below ground sharing space with corpses and found themselves need deep in mud. and facing the most terrifying new weapons they haven't planned for like a flame thrower. and poison gas against which they improvised defenses but these often did not work. in addition to injuries that came from people being killed or horribly wounded by poison gas, millions more were wounded by bullets and shrapnel. all you have to do is look at a

picture of one wounded soldier here and then in your mind multiplied that by twenty-one million, the number of soldiers wounded in this war. that the enormous toll of the war gave us almost permanently a darker and more cynical view of the world and people had before. this cartoon for example appeared during the war. it changed the world in many ways. there was something else that was unusual about the first world war that made it different from many of the wars we have experienced since then. and that was in most wars we are accustomed to the court doing most of the dying. think about iraq, afghanistan, vietnam, very few americans who are the children of corporate

chief executives, senators, members of congress. it was the exact opposite in the first world war. these are cadets, britain's most exclusive school drilling in 1915. the following year more than 30 graduates were killed in a single day the first day of the battle. anywhere you look you see similar statistics. men graduated in 1913. thirty-one% were killed and the death toll fell on the upper class so heavily because it was a young captains and lieutenants who led their troops out of frenches in to the relentless hail of machine-gun fire. hatfield house is one of the great british country estates. for centuries the seat of the

cecil family. and solve very who was prime minister of england for many years at the turn of the century. one of his grandson's is a character in this book. prime minister of england lost a son in the war. so did his counterpart, the chancellor of germany. a man in the middle in this picture, general sir herbert lawrence who was chief of staff on the western front lost two sons. his counterpart in the french army, loss three sons. part of what fascinated me about this war that are wanted to explore in writing about it was what made men like that think

the way they did? how could these generals and prime ministers and cabinet ministers day after day and week after week, month after month, year after of year order literally their own sons into battle with such a high certainty of there being injured or killed? the very madness of this war may be equally interested in another type of person. those who fought it as madness at the time and spoke out and either refused to supply or supported those who refuse to fight. in the united states for example, eugene debs gave us speaking for against american participation in this war. for that he was sent to prison

and was still in prison in november of 1920 when he received a million votes for president on the socialist ticket. another american pioneer social worker, jane addams was a strong opponent of the war. more than 500 americans were jailed as work resisters including these two in arkansas. in germany, rosa luxemburg spoke out against the war. in britain, bertrand russell, the country's leading philosopher was i think the most eloquent of all war opponents and really became a personal hero for me in the writing of this book. i will read you just one thing he wrote describing his feelings at the beginning of the war. he rose i appreciate him because

of his intellectual bravery and acknowledging the conflict of the feelings. most of them don't do. he described himself at the beginning of the war being tortured by patriotism. i desired to see germany -- love of england is the strongest emotion i possess and setting aside at such a moment making a difficult renunciation as a lover of truth, national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. as a lover of civilization the return to barbarism appalled me. the massacre of the young run my heart. his opinions wrestles then six months in prison during the war. war opponents like him and other country, came up against a

relentless barrage of propaganda because this was the first big propaganda war. this was a u.s. army poster. here is one from germany, with god, for king and country. trying to get people in australia are roused by a german invasion of australia. some of the propaganda had a very nasty edge to it. if you didn't enlisted to fight you were letting down the women. you were guilty, or worse of all you were a feminist. there were war resisters of all the warring countries but for various reasons the sharpest conflict between people believe the war was, a nobleman

necessary crusade and people who thought it was not worth millions of lives being wasted, and in england. there were more than 20,000 men of military age who refused induction into the british army. many of them as a matter of principle also refused the alternative to service as prescribed for conscientious objectors which could mean driving an ambulance at the front or working in the war industry and more than 6,000 of them went to prison. this is the largest number of people up to that point in time who had never been in prison for political reasons in a western democracy. this is where the prison -- many of them were kept. for the longest time i couldn't figure out how to get these

types of characters into the same book. the war resisters on one hand and the generals, prime minister's, orchestrator is on the other hand. unexpectedly it came to me how to do it. it was a very boring, scholarly radical -- article. let me make sure it is on the screen. a well-known british pacifist, staunch radical who had been to present four times for women suffrage before the war. strong backer of independence from india, strong opponent, traveled up and down the country holding rallies many of which were broken up by patriotic knobs or shutdown of the police wrote the best-selling anti war

pamphlet published during the conflict. in one sentence in passing this scholar who was writing about her said of course this is as far as the opinions on the subject were deeply upsetting to her and gave the name, sir john french which i immediately recognized as commander in chief on the western front. this will be an interesting relationship to write about. the brother and sister had diametrically opposed political points of view and were very fond of each other and kept seeing each other throughout the war. they consider the point of view considerable eccentricity. they stopped speaking to each other after the war when a nationalist revolt against british rule broke out in ireland, considered a strong military man to put it down sent

him to ireland as viceroy to suppress the rebellion and went to work for the i r a. that gave me the idea to try to tell the story of this period focusing on britain where the conflict was most intense through looking at divided families. i don't have time to tell you about other families i found, characters from them form the core of the book. our talk about other war resisters as well. senator brockway was a young man who had been a newspaper editor before the war, went to jail as a war resister, continued to be a newspaper editor in prison, editing a clandestine newspaper for his fellow resisters

published on plain paper and published for a full year before the authorities discovered it, shut it down and put him in solitary confinement. the war that people like him resisted left an incredible toll entire cities destroyed through scorched-earth tactics. by the time the last year of the war so many soldiers had been killed that the british were drafting 17-year-olds and the germans were taking soldiers even younger. even still the carnage when don and on and on. by the time it was over there were more than nine million military dead and an estimated

10 to twelve million. we will never know the exact number, civilian casualties. not only this of course because the war made the world worse in every conceivable way. one consequence was the man on the far right in this picture shown in this first world war german army unit to 20 years later led to a more destructive war and the holocaust. when we think back on this warm my hope is we will remember not just politicians and not just the generals but those who tried to stop the bloodshed even though they were in vain.

and a further hope is that thinking that way about the first world war might make us think the same way about other wars that have happened since then including some very recently. thank you very much. i think we have a few minutes left for people to ask questions. [applause] you want to step up to the microphone? this is being recorded for c-span. they need to hear your voice. >> you said the civilian casualties were greater than the military casualties during the war. would most of them have taken place in the east? because the fighting in the west was confined to such a narrow

area of that one wouldn't expect many civilian casualties. >> let me repeat the question. the question was the civilian casualties. were they greater in the east than in the west because in the west the fighting was contained in that very narrow strip of france and belgium. that is absolutely true. in france and belgium there were some civilian casualties but they were not enormous in numbers. by far the largest number of civilian casualties were in russia and eastern europe because there, fighting covered a vast kerri and unlike in the west the front moved back and forth hundreds of miles at a time and when it moved, each army left scorched-earth behind them. they blew up all the building leaders the cut down trees, poisoned the wells so there would be nothing left of use to the other side and each of those

moves set millions of people in flight. there were something like six million russian refugees alone who were in flight over the course of the war. nothing like this had happened before for a long time in europe. the other reason the casualties were enormous, occupied eastern europe and germany and austria and hungary was this was the first war between large constellations of nations. large power blocks where each side tried to sir head -- star of the other into submission. the germans tried to do so by submarine warfare in the north atlantic's sinking ships that were from the united states and canada bringing not just armament's but food to britain and france. they saying huge numbers of these ships. the allies were more successful in their attempt to starve the

other side sir a naval blockade and the death toll from starvation was the enormous. estimates are that the average citizen of germany lost 20% of his or her body weight over the course of 1914-1918. germany was better off than austria or hungary and austria and hungary better off than the huge territories in eastern europe and russia that the austrians and germans occupied. they were last in line for food. difficult to estimate death tolls in a situation like that because when there is famine, people are dying of diseases they otherwise would have extra -- survived. difficult to calculate. most of the authorities on the

subject set sicilian death toll between ten million, and twelve million altogether. [inaudible] >> what is your view about that? >> the question was what about the rule of the military-industrial complex in promoting this work? as in many points in history, the times we are living in now, manufacturers of armaments of all kinds are trying to persuade governments that they ought to buy their wares. that went on then, that goes on now. there are times when we have been more successful at preventing war from breaking out because of that.

there were unimaginable quantities of armaments sold by the american industrial complex to the u.s. government during the cold war. most of its supposedly directed at the soviet union. wade had enough submarines and bombers to destroy the soviet union 200 times over. somehow we were able to prevent that war from breaking out. what is so curious to me about the first world war, another thing that gives it that haunting quality that draws me and many other writers to that period is there did not seem to be in 1914 a conflict of ideologies or directly of economic interests. up until a few weeks before the fighting began everybody was getting along with each other quite well. czar nicholas ii of russia and

kaiser wilhelm of germany would go on vacation in the baltics together. germany was britain's largest trading partner. there was an enormous amount of cross border trade. everybody was getting along quite well. there were all sorts of imperial rivalries under the surface. there was a system of alliances which guaranteed that if one country on either side went to war other countries were committed to come in and support and that proved disastrous and that made it so rapidly expand to a continent why it war and a world war because some of the early shots of the war were actually fired in africa and asia as each side tried to seize the other's colonies. it seems so easily avoidable because there was not the kind

of conflict -- open conflict between ideologies and people saying nasty things about the other side. not that kind of thing we have seen so often in history since then and yet if the erupted into one of the greatest conflicts of all. there was a momentum to. each side believed they could win the war quickly. one theory i have about why they believed that was the actual experience of warfare that the british generals and french generals and german generals had was almost entirely limited to colonial warfare -- in india where over previous decades they had been up against africans and indians who were not armed with repeating rifles and not armed with machine guns and barbwire and they had been able to defeat very easily and they assumed the same thing would happen in

europe in 1914. stepped up to the microphone which i think is reporting even if you don't hear it in here and i will repeat the question. >> in so much as there were so many interrelated people involved, leaders, because of the stalemate of two or three years was there any back story of people trying to stop this during the time of fighting? >> the question was especially given the interrelated this of the royal families of europe, was there any sort of back story of people trying to stop the fighting while it was going on. much less than you would think. in so many wars there are talks going on in the background. the u. s talked to the vietnamese for years before making a peace settlement. the u.s. is said to be carrying on negotiations with the taliban

right now. nothing like this between 1914-1918. there were a few attempts made by people outside government and in the book i talk about one of the most interesting ones. there was a human rights crusader in england, remarkable woman who in the middle of the war, 1916, travel from france into switzerland's which was neutral and into germany. and she had known before the war. could this be the possible basis of agreement? she left thinking she had -- i think it was an illusion.

some idea what could be a settlement. is largely unsuccessfully to see high ranking people in the british government to convey ideas to them. nothing came of it except that parliament immediately passed a law which there had not been such regulation before saying it was illegal for a british citizen to travel to enemy territory during the war. nothing became of it but in this war that killed twenty million people she was the full human being public or private travelling from one side to the other trying to make peace. other people made stabs at it. the pope put forth a peace plan nobody paid attention to. a convention of women from both sides and from neutral countries was held in holland in 1915.

jane addams, pioneer social worker played a role in that. britain and germany and france fittest -- placed enormous obstacles but a few managed to anyway. nothing came of that. the oscar hungarians, austria and hungary was a shaky regime, sent out a peace feeler to the allies and got slapped down by kaiser wilhelm. it was not until the last four or five weeks of the war that the germans began extending peace. each side throughout the conflict still had that conviction that they could win. moreover they backed themselves into a corner because the rhetoric that they used to rouse the civilian population to take part in this was such that they were declaring civilization itself is at stake if we lose

this war. when you back yourself into that kind of rhetorical corner is hard to have any kind of confidential or not confidential negotiations about these. >> i always wanted because world war i is remembered as the most senseless war and also the most inevitable war. has anybody put forth a counterfactual about what might have happened if britain and france had not gone to war after the germans attacked? do we know what kind of world would have resulted? >> as anybody done a counterfactual history what might have happened if the first world war had not happened? yes. surprisingly the person who has done the most interesting such

work on this and i say surprisingly because i find myself in almost total agreement on the subject. he is a very conservative man. the scottish historian who was an adviser to margaret thatcher. this big booster of the british empire and had to replicate what the british empire did and so forth but he has written in many articles describing the decision to enter the first world war on the part of britain was the worst thing britain ever did. moreover it was directly responsible for the loss of the british empire. he makes the case as do many people in britain, britain was not attacked at the beginning of the war. the germans expected and rather counted on their staying out of the war and