People Power

People Power charts the history of the anti-war movement in the UK from the outbreak of the First World War to present-day conflicts in the Middle East, telling the story of conscientious objectors and others who have been engaged in protest over the past century. Drawing on testimonies from the Imperial War Museum’s vast collection, and its rich archive of visual material, including photographs, paintings, posters, cartoons and badges, the book explores the wide-ranging reasons for opposing war and examines the changes and continuity in the movement as the nature of conflict has evolved from trench warfare to nuclear weapons. The role of key organizations and groups within the movement is examined, such as the Peace Pledge Union in the 1930s and the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the 1980s, as well as that of high-profile individual campaigners, including Fenner Brockway and Tony Benn. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London in 2017, People Power is an important and compelling counterpart to the myriad histories of war in the past 100 years.