In 1934, Alan A. Milne—veteran of the First World War and the author of books about Winnie-the-Pooh—published Peace with Honour: a passionate appeal demanding that, at all costs, a new war in Europe be prevented. But just six years later, in 1940, he had to carry on this theme in War with Honour. Without abandoning his ideals of peace, Milne acknowledges that Nazism must be confronted by armed means.
These two books, born as a forced duology amid the looming catastrophe and first translated into Russian, have become a rare testimony to the era. They are at once a document of the twentieth century and a meditation on human nature, as well as on the limits of pacifism and the price that must be paid to preserve peace.