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A Century of Peace Making: An Annotated Bibliography: Introduction

Acknowledgement

The authors of this annotated bibliography would like to give thanks to the American Library Association for the Carnegie-Whitney Award (2006-2008), for its gracious support and recognition of the value of this project; to peace activists Mitch Hall and Jarrett Lovell for sharing their knowledge and sources in the early stage of our research; to California State University, Fullerton for granting time for research; and to all the authors, editors, and publishers, out of whose work we have built “A Century of Peace-Making: An Annotated Bibliography.”

 

by Jie Tian and Matthew Mallard

Introduction

This annotated bibliography is not a comprehensive list of books on peace created over the last century, nor is it limited to one specific area. Instead, these works were chosen organically, to reflect our process of learning about peace and what it has meant to different people in specific historical, cultural, religious, spiritual, socio-economic, and political contexts. We also expanded the concept of “a century” to before the 20th century and into the 21st century in order to acknowledge the continuity and influence of certain ideas, individuals, philosophies, and strategies through the passage of time.

Thus, this annotated bibliography contains a cross section of literature that conveys the history of what peace has meant in a variety of contexts, to a variety of people, from various walks of life, in different cultural groups of the world. It contains works that look at peace as the absence of war, as a way of life, as living in truth and actively resisting untruth, as a means of interaction with the people and the world around us, as a restructuring of society for a better future, or simply as a physical or mental place of solitude. It includes memoirs, essays, letters, poetry and other literary works, interdisciplinary academic research, philosophical expositions, structural plans for societal transitions, and doctrines of faith.

This annotated bibliography consists of four sections: Voices of Peace Collected: Anthologies and Readers, Making Peace with Words: Literary Works on Peace, Acts and Accounts of Peace: The Personal and the Collective Story, and Peace Research: Achieving Peace in Theory and Practice, in Human Life, and in the World. We begin each annotation entry with an APA citation, followed by a quotation from the work, and then a description of the work.

At the nascence of a new year, we present this annotated bibliography to readers, libraries, peace organizations and agencies around the world. It is our deep hope that the voices of peace and the collective wisdom of the past be observed, and these books inspire us to build our peace library, build a mind of peace, build a world of peace.