War, Peace, and the Future.
An International, Feminist Antiwar Manifesto
[International Feminism]. Key, Ellen. War, Peace, and the Future. A Consideration of Nationalism and Internationalism, and of the Relation of Women to War…Translated by Hildegard Norberg. New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916.
8vo.; interior faintly, evenly sunned; previous owner’s signature, dated 1944 ("Louise G. Phillips, Nov. 7, 1944"), on the front pastedown; blue cloth, stamped in gilt; a handsome copy.
First American edition of another book by this Swedish feminist writer. War, Peace, and the Future… is, essentially, a very early feminist manifesto against violent conflict between nations. In this sense it precedes the international women’s peace movement by many years, although murmurings of this movement did start at around the time of the First World War, also the era of this book’s publication.
The book consists of 27 chapters, whose subjects include: “The Debit Balance of War – Visualizing War;” “The Case of Sweden and Norway: An International Lesson;” “Internationalism;” “Nationalism and Patriotism;” “Women and War;” “Women and World-Peace;” “Women and Political Responsibility;” “Woman’s Work During the War;” “Woman’s Peace Work;” and many others. The arguments Key makes are sophisticated and daring, especially for that rah-rah patriotic time. In fact, many of Key’s central points (women need to band together against war; women can help men to achieve peace; women have a political responsibility to oppose war, especially unjust wars) are the very same points that reemerged during the anti-Vietnam feminist organizing of the 1970s and beyond.
During one chapter of the text Key eloquently discusses the average woman’s reaction to war, and to this war (i.e., WWI):
The condition of the mind of the women of every [her emphasis] country in Europe at the outbreak of the war was one of maddening impotence at their inability to prevent this world calamity. And they have the same feelings now as regards attaining peace. The women of the warring countries had no more wished for war than the great mass of men. That they courageously sacrifice husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers, that they devote their strength and work to their country does not imply that they experience war in the same way as the men do. Many of them have sorrowed day and night because they lack all possibility of wielding any direct influence on decisions, the consequences of which they [her emphasis] have to bear. This awful feeling of impotence that a great number of women, who were formerly indifferent to suffrage and other rights, will prove to be a plough that makes the furrows for the seeds of new thoughts. (pp. 261-262)
Key indeed was right: anti-war activism – in the First World War, the Second World War, the Vietnam war, and many others – has brought together women internationally who then have plunged into causes like feminism head on. Another way of saying this is that for many years, indeed for most of the past century, women have spearheaded the cry for peace, and through this cause have come to work with each other on others – their own.
This linking of women through war has been a fact, though a horrible one, throughout the Twentieth Century. Indeed, one wonders what exactly the circumstances were that lead the previous female owner of this book to receive or buy it in 1944 – an auspicious date for wars if there ever was one.
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