ABSTRACT
Since 1945, peace activism, both as directed against wars and against nuclear armament, has left deep marks on American culture and policy; literature helped facilitate these momentous cultural and political happenings. This chapter explores some of the imaginative resources available to peace activists in the form of depictions of peace activism in American literature. Though novels command the greatest market share and the greatest cultural capital among genres of American literature, it argues that the conflict-driven and linear structure of the traditional novel renders it a form ill-suited to activist literature. Instead, poetry, nonfiction, and drama may offer more expansive possibilities. The chapter examines Rebecca Solnit's book on the anti-nuclear movement; poetry and drama from the anti-war movement by Father Daniel Berrigan, and recent poetry emerging in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.
