Olive Schreiner’s The Dawn of Civilisation: & Other Unpublished Wartime Writings

Olive Schreiner's The Dawn of Civilisation & Other Unpublished Wartime Writings The important feminist writer, theorist and social commentator Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) was an 'absolute pacifist'. Read her on arguing with Lloyd George about the war, ticking off Gandhi for reneging on his principles, planning pacifist activities with Bertrand Russell, helping Fred Pethick-Lawrence join a pacifist group, commiserating with friends about deaths in the trenches and much more. Schreiner wrote about war in general and the Great War in particular, analysing it as a total war that unleashed a download economic spiral, bitterness and the sense of unfinished business, and a future even more cataclysmic war to come. She also left a number of previously unpublished manuscripts, shorter writings which appeared only in small circulation journals of the day, and many letters, all concerned with the causes of war and its remedies. Rather than diplomacy and statecraft, economic and political gain and other structural factors, Schreiner pinpoints something more basic and more ingrained in the character of humankind, calling it a 'desire for dominance' and 'top-dogism' aroused by nationalist and patriotic sentiments, and emphasising that women are attracted to this as much as men. Edited and introduced by Liz Stanley, who has worked on Schreiner's writings and letters for more than 20 years, this book publishes for the first time Schreiner's prescient manuscripts, never before published in full; her rousing shorter wartime writings; and her engrossing letters with their sharp comments about events, people and organisations. Book Contents Introduction: Olive Schreiner on War, Peace & Pacifism Part One: The Dawn of Civilisation Part Two: Shorter Wartime Writings Part Three: Yours Ever, Olive Schreiner's Wartime Letters Index The Editor Liz Stanley is Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. She has been writing about Olive Schreiner's work and manuscripts since discovering her political essays and has lived in South Africa for extended research periods. Previous books on South African topics include, The Racialising Process: Whites Writing Whiteness in Letters, South Africa 1770s-1970s (Edinburgh, X Press, 2017), Mourning Becomes... The Concentration Camps of the South African War (MUP, 2008) and The World's Great Question: Olive Schreiner's South African Letters (Van Riebeeck, 2014). And For More... For more on Olive Schreiner's letters and manuscripts, please go to https://www.oliveschreiner.org