The Politics of Conscience: The Historic Peace Churches and America at War, 1917-1955

The story recounted in this book is the attempt of the historic peace churches (Friends, Mennonites, and the Church of the Brethren) to gain alternative service for conscientious objectors to war from 1917 to 1955 in the United States. The primary focus is on the forty-year effort to establish an historic peace church conscientious machinery of the American warfare state. This is the first book to attempt to fully reconstruct that effort.