The burning trash cans were an unexpected sight in Catonsville, Maryland, a quiet suburb of Baltimore. More shocking were the nine anti-war activists with cans of homemade napalm calmly watching the flames and explaining the raid to onlookers and journalists while waiting to be arrested for destroying Selective Service records. Undeniably an act of protest against the Vietnam War, the activists hoped to make a much larger statement about the immorality of United States foreign policy around the world, not just in Southeast Asia. Despite the intended message, the actions of the Catonsville Nine, as the Catholic protestors became known, have been subsumed into the larger narrative of domestic opposition to the Vietnam War. With The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistances in the Vietnam Era, Shawn Francis Peters provides a useful corrective, with his in-depth study of the Catonsville action making an important contribution to the growing literature on domestic protest during the 1960s.

Peters's careful research into the lives of participants on both sides – the activists, their larger support network, the Draft Board employees, and those who participated in the protests surrounding the trials – does much to contextualize their motives and responses. His work benefits from an extensive collection of sources, accumulated over a lifetime of interest in the Catonsville action, as well as interviews and cooperation with George Mische, the Melvilles, Dan Berrigan, and the families of the other participants. Focussing on the backgrounds and motivations of the Nine, particularly their Catholicism, Peters situates the protest in the broader context of liberation theology and emphasizes that this particular protest was intended to draw attention to hypocrisies in US policies toward Latin America as much as it was an effort to slow down the machinery of the Vietanam War.

Peters's study is in many ways a collective biography of the Nine: priests Dan and Phil Berrigan; former priest Tom Melville; nurse Mary Moylan; Brother David (James McGinnis) Darst; artist Tom Lewis; and lay missionary activists Marjorie Melville, John Hogan, and George Mische. But his book goes much further, showing “how, in perilous times, profound religious and political beliefs can coalesce and motivate sincere individuals to risk their personal freedom in order to resist state policies they deem both illegal and immoral” (8). In the process of carefully documenting the paths that brought them to Catonsville, Peters offers useful insights into the broader motivations of those who challenge and oppose US foreign policy as well as a detailed glimpse into the planning behind this important act of civil disobedience.

After introducing the main actors, Peters devotes the bulk of his study to the events surrounding their unique act of “witness” and to a smaller raid that took place on 27 October 1967. He carefully traces the genesis of the idea for the Draft Board protests, the rationale in the minds of the planners, their recruitment of additional participants, and finally the climactic protest itself. He is similarly thorough with the events surrounding the trial of the Nine, the preparation of their defense, and the support they received from the broader anti-war community. The final chapters explore the decisions of the Nine following the guilty verdict, explaining why the Berrigans, Mische, and Moylan went underground while the rest, with the exception of Darst, who had died in a car accident, served their sentences.

Overall, Peters succeeds in his goal to present the Nine as human, rather than as idealized or saint-like protestors. His primary contribution to the existing literature lies in his dogged determination to consider the motivations and post-trial lives of all nine codefendants. In doing so, Peters links this act of civil disobedience to social and political trends ranging from the Catholic Workers, to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, to the radical feminism of the 1970s. Peters's efforts to situate anti-Vietnam War protest into the larger scope of mid-twentieth-century political and social activisim is an important corrective to an existing narrative about the Catonsville protest that is overly focussed on Vietnam.

Even so, war is such a central element of the protest – particularly in its contribution to heightened official responses – that Peters does not entirely suceed in his goal to decenter the Vietnam War from the story of the Catonsville Draft Board protest. Rather than attempt to deny the importance of Vietnam in the actions of the Nine, Peters instead adds layers of additional detail to support his argument of the broader significance and goals of the Catonsville action. While often fascinating, this wealth of information ultimately detracts from his larger argument, overwhelming the reader with facts and anecdotes.

Given its assumption of familiarity with the social and political context of the Vietnam War, this book would be most useful to scholars of the period. However, its engaging narrative and readable prose make this an ideal work for upper-level undergraduate students. Clearly a labor of love, The Catonsville Nine is a useful examination of the ways in which conscience and politics combined to create both an important moment of protest and witness and a larger drama critiquing US foreign policy in Vietnam and the rest of the world.