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 Aldington
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson – George I. Gurdjieff, 1949
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque, 1928
The Americanization of Emily – William Bradford Huie, 1964
Ashe of Rings – Mary Butts novel, 1926^[1]
Bid Me To Live – H.D. novel, 1960^[2]
Captain Jinks, Hero – Ernest Crosby, 1902^[3]^[4]
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller, 1961
A Doctor's Journal Entry For 6 August,1945 - Vikram Seth
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^[5]
Death Of A Hero – Richard Aldington
Despised and Rejected – Rose Allatini novel (published under the name A. T. Fitzroy) 1918^[6]^[7]
A Fable – William Faulkner, 1954, World War I
The Empty Drum - Leo Tolstoy, 1887
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway, 1929
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway, 1940
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
Involution & Evolution – Joss Sheldon novel
Johnny Got His Gun – Dalton Trumbo novel, 1938
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline novel
Lay Down Your Arms! – Bertha von Suttner novel
Looking Good – Keith Maillard novel^[8]
Legend of Galactic Heroes – Tanaka Yoshiki
Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes – Keith Maillard novel^[9]
Lysistrata – Aristophanes play, 411 BCE
The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer novel
Non-Combatants and Others – Rose Macaulay novel, 1916^[5]
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 – T. H. White, 1958^[10]
Paths of Glory – Humphrey Cobb, 1935^[11]
Quiet Ways – Katharine Burdekin novel, 1930^[12]
The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane novel, 1895
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Shabdangal – Malayalam novel, 1947
The Short-Timers – Gustav Hasford novel
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut science fiction novel
The Sorrow of War – Bảo Ninh novel, 1990
The Thin Red Line – James Jones novel, 1962
The Things They Carried – Tim O'Brien, 1990
Three Soldiers – John Dos Passos novel, 1921, World War I
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass novel
The Train Was on Time (Der Zug war pünktlich) – Heinrich Böll novel, 1949
Two Women – Alberto Moravia novel, 1958
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse novel, 1916^[13]
The Unknown Soldier – Väinö Linna novel, 1954
Voyage to Faremido – Frigyes Karinthy novel, 1916^[14]
"War" - Ludwig Renn novel, 1928.
War Porn - Roy Scranton novel, 2016.
"The War Prayer" – Mark Twain short story, c.1910
War with the Newts – Karel Čapek, novel 1936^[15]
The Wars – Timothy Findley novel, 1977^[16]
We That Were Young – Irene Rathbone novel, 1932^[17]
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^[18]

Non-fiction

Addicted to War – Joel Andreas, 1991, 2002
Old Man at the Bridge - Ernest Hemingway May 1938
An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era – Charles DeBenedetti, 1990
The Armies of the Night – Norman Mailer non-fiction novel, 1968
Autobiography:The Story of my Experiments with Truth – Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1927^[19]
The Bloody Traffic – Fenner Brockway, 1934^[20]
Born on the Fourth of July – Ron Kovic autobiography, 1976
The Causes of World War Three – C. Wright Mills, 1958^[21]
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^[22]
The Conduct of the Allies – Jonathan Swift, 1711
The Conquest of Violence – Bart de Ligt, 1937^[23]
Cry Havoc! – Beverley Nichols, 1933^[20]
Disenchantment – C. E. Montague, 1922^[24]
The Education of a Christian Prince – Desiderius Erasmus, 1516^[22]
Einstein on Peace – edited by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden; preface by Bertrand Russell, 1960^[20]
Ends and Means – Aldous Huxley essays, 1937^[20]
Fate of the Earth – Jonathan Schell, 1982
The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now – Jonathan Schell, 1998
Good-Bye to All That - Robert Graves, 1929
Hiroshima – John Hersey account of the bombings, 1946
Human Smoke – Nicholson Baker^[25]
If the War Goes On … – Hermann Hesse, 1971^[26]
In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter – Gordon C. Zahn, 1981^[19]
The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War – Frederick Downs, 1978
The Kingdom of God is Within You – Leo Tolstoy, 1894
The Inevitable Revolution – Leo Tolstoy, 1909
Krieg dem Kriege aka War Against War – Ernst Friedrich, 1924^[27]^[28]
The Last Weapon and its sequel The Weapon Unsheathed – Theodora Wilson Wilson, 1916
The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820 – Jill Liddington, 1989^[29]
Miami and the Siege of Chicago – Norman Mailer non-fiction novel, 1968
New Cyneas – Émeric Crucé, 1623
Newer Ideals of Peace – Jane Addams, 1907^[30]
No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran – Murray Polner, 1971
Nonviolence: The history of a dangerous idea – Mark Kurlansky, 2006
Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe – Graham Allison, 2004
Nuclear Weapons: The Road to Zero – edited by Joseph Rotblat, 1998
Pacifism in Europe to 1914, Peter Brock, 1972^[20]
Pacifism in the Twentieth Century – Peter Brock and Nigel Young, 1999
Pacifism in the United States – Peter Brock, 1968^[20]
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^[20]
A People's History of the United States – Howard Zinn, 1980
Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch – Immanuel Kant essay, 1795
The Politics of Jesus – John Howard Yoder, 1972
The Power of Non-Violence – Richard B. Gregg, 1934^[20]
The Root Is Man: Two Essays in Politics – Dwight Macdonald, 1953^[31]
Scapegoats of the Empire – Lt. George Witton memoir, 1907
Science, Liberty and Peace – Aldous Huxley, 1946
The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger – Jonathan Schell, 2007
The Struggle Against the Bomb 1 - One World or None: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement through 1953 – Lawrence S. Wittner, 1993^[32]
The Struggle Against the Bomb 2 - Resisting the Bomb: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement, 1954-1970 – Lawrence S. Wittner, 1997^[32]
The Struggle Against the Bomb 3 - Toward Nuclear Abolition: a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement, 1971 to the present – Lawrence S. Wittner, 2003^[32]
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain, 1933^[33]
The Third Morality – Gerald Heard, 1937^[20]
Three Guineas – Virginia Woolf, 1938^[34]
Conscience for Change, reprinted as The Trumpet of Conscience – (five transcribed lectures given by) Martin Luther King Jr., 1968^[19]
Voices Against War: A Century of Protest – Lyn Smith, 2009^[35]
War and Democracy – Paul Gottfried, 2012
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
Warheads to Windmills: Preventing Climate Catastrophe and Nuclear War – Timmon Wallis, 2024
We Will Not Cease – Archibald Baxter memoir, 1939
Which Way to Peace? – Bertrand Russell, 1936^[20]
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^[20]
Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace – Judith Hand, 2003 ^{[citation needed]}
Worthy of Gratitude? Why Veterans May Not Want to be Thanked for Their Service in War – Camillo Mac Bica, Gnosis Press, 2015
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^[19]^[36]
The Pacifist Conscience – edited by Peter Mayer, 1966^[19]
Peace is the Way: writings on nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation – edited by Walter Wink^[37]
We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now – Murray Polner, Thomas Woods, 2008

Juvenile fiction

The Butter Battle Book – Dr. Seuss, 1984
Children of the Book – Peter Carter, 1982^[38]
The Clay Marble – Minfong Ho novel, 1991
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
Sunrise over Fallujah – Walter Dean Myers, 2008^[39]
War Horse – Michael Morpurgo, 1982
When the Horses Ride By: Children in the Times of War – Greenfield, Gilchrist poems and illus., 2006
Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum (published posthumously), Reilly & Lee, 1920.

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
A Little Peace – Barbara Kerley, 2007
Operation Warhawks: How Young People Become Warriors – Terrence Webster-Doyle, 1993
Paths to Peace: People Who Changed the World – Jane Breskin Zalben, 2004
Peace One Day – Jeremy Gilley, 2005
Some Reasons for War: How Families, Myths and Warfare Are Connected – Sue Mansfield, 1988

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