War is a Racket was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., New York. It was condensed in Reader's Digest as a book supplement, with an introduction by Lowell Thomas, who praised Butler's "...moral as well as physical courage... "

Hans Schmidt, in his 1987 biography of Butler, Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History, offers the following assessment: "Much of War is a Racket was stock antiwar, anti-imperialist idiom, part of an American tradition dating back to the eighteenth century. Butler's particular contribution was his recantation, denouncing war on moral grounds after having been a warrior hero and spending most of his life as a military insider. The theme remained vigorously patriotic and nationalistic, decrying imperialism as a disgrace rooted in the greed of a privleged few."

Like everything else on the Scuttlebutt & Small Chow site, General Butler's tract is presented here in the interest of its historical significance, not as an espousal of a particular view.

BJ Omanson