Review: Not In Our Name From Planet 221
Martin Wright reviews
Not In Our Name: War Dissent in a Welsh Town
by Philip Adams
Philip Adams, £15.00
A century after the passing of the Military Service Act of 1916, we live again in the shadow of war. White feathers and tribunals may have given way to slurs about ‘terrorist sympathisers’, but those who opposed the first world war of 1914-18, if they were alive today, would recognise the current militarisation of our society as being essentially the same process that they stood against a century ago. Philip Adams’ study of opposition to the first world war in the town of Briton Ferry is therefore a timely exercise in the provision of historical perspective. Not In Our Name puts us in touch with a largely forgotten generation of peace activists: men and women who stood against the tide of their time to make a powerful statement for human rights and international brotherhood. It serves to remind us that the first world war, contrary to received opinion, was not universally supported or unquestioned.
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