Smedley Darlington Butler

Known as "the Maverick Marine" and "Fighting Hell-Devil," Brigadier General Smedley Darlington was the most decorated U. S. Marine Corps officer in U. S. military history. Butler's 1935 lecture "War is a Racket" presents several key arguments against war and its profiteering nature. Among his points, Butler argues that wars are conducted for the benefit of a small group of insiders while the majority bear the costs, and that debt from wars is always paid by future generations. He recommends measures that, in his view, would mitigate armed conflict, including limiting the wages of executives, bankers, and arms manufacturers during wartime to match soldiers' pay. He forcefully contends that warfare is a profit-driven enterprise that exploits patriotism for financial gain. This Warbler Classics edition includes two other seminal anti-war essays: "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau and "The Moral Equivalent of War" by William James, as well as brief biographical notes on Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler, Henry David Thoreau, and William James.

US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler collected an award cabinet full of medals for his battlefield bravery. But perhaps his bravest act of all was to declare, after his retirement in the early 1930s, who was really winning (and losing) during the bloody clashes. It was business interests, he revealed, who commercially benefited from warfare. War Is a Racket is the title of the influential speech Butler delivered on a tour across the United States, as well the expanded version of the talk that was later published in 1935?and is now reprinted here. This seminal piece of writing rings as true today as it did during Butler’s lifetime. In his introduction, Jesse Ventura reviews Butler’s original writings and relates them to our current political climate?explaining how right he was, and how wrong our current system is. With an insightful new foreword by Salon.com founder David Talbot, and a new afterword by activist Cindy Sheehan, this portable reference will appeal to anyone interested in the state of our country and the entire world. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.