Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid

A collection of essays by the famous English writer Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) includes short analytical pieces written in the same richly artistic language as her major prose. Some works were conceived as a blunt social polemic; others resemble literary sketches, attempts at modernist novels, or psychological studies. In every essay in this collection, Woolf reveals herself as a sensitive recorder of the present day, creating texts-moments—hard-to-grasp sketches, images, and intuitions of a new century.

The title essay, “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,” was written in August 1940 for an American symposium on issues facing modern women. In it, Woolf reflects on how patriarchal striving for domination and enslavement leads to wars and dictatorships.