Peace research first emerged as an explicit academic area of study in the 1950s. Pioneers of peace research included Wright, Richardson and Lenz, and this book examines their contribution and that of the 'frontiersmen' who developed the study further, establishing peace research in its own right. Assessing the evolution, status and significance of peace research after fifty years, this novel and comprehensive book is relevant not only to students of peace research, but also to the developing debates within international relations and security studies. This is where there are real problems associated with the understanding of new problems and issues by reference to traditional concepts and categories. The book will attract a broad market in the fields of international relations, politics and social theory, as well as scholars in peace studies.

Beginning with the birth of the U.N., when Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, and Gromyko set the stage, United Nations brings us a cast of profoundly important and colorful international players: the brilliant Dag Hammarskjold, who became the most daring, imaginative secretary-general the U.N. ever had; Nikita Khrushchev, who electrified the General Assembly as he pounded his shoe in protest over the Congo; Ralph Bunche, the grandson of a slave and "the Jackie Robinson of American diplomacy", who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his U.N. work in the Middle East; and U.S. ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who walked out of the General Assembly over the Third World's anti-Zion resolution. United Nations is a story filled with action and heartbreak.

When the World Calls is the first complete and balanced look at the Peace Corps’s first fifty years. Revelatory and candid, journalist Stanley Meisler’s engaging narrative exposes Washington infighting, presidential influence, and the Volunteers’ unique struggles abroad. He deftly unpacks the complicated history with sharp analysis and memorable anecdotes, taking readers on a global trek starting with the historic first contingent of Volunteers to Ghana on August 30, 1961. In the years since, in spite of setbacks, the ethos of the Peace Corps has endured, largely due to the perseverance of the 200,000 Volunteers themselves, whose shared commitment to effect positive global change has been a constant in one of our most complex—and valued—institutions.

Johan Galtung, one of the founders of modern peace studies, provides a wide-ranging panorama of the ideas, theories and assumptions on which the study of peace is based. The book is organized in four parts, each examining the one of the four major theoretical approaches to peace. The first part covers peace theory, exploring the epistemological assumptions of peace. In Part Two conflict theory is examined with an exploration of nonviolent and creative handling of conflict. Developmental theory is discussed in Part Three, exploring structural violence, particularly in the economic field, together with a consideration of the ways of overcoming that violence. The fourth part is devoted to civilization theory. This involves an

The fiftieth anniversary of the long entanglement between the United States and NATO is an appropriate occasion to reflect. One of the few NATO studies to concentrate on the history of the alliance, particularly the relationship between its senior partner and its European allies, this study examines critical issues in depth, to uncover the ability of the allies to surmount their internal divisions and to confront their Soviet adversary. While NATO archives are still not fully open, the use of declassified documents from the National Archives and the presidential libraries are of invaluable assistance in considering the historical role of America in the alliance, and the continuing relevance of the organization in U.S. foreign policy. The twelve chapters of this book, provide analyses of important issues in the organization's history, and are connected by brief contexual narratives. The resulting picture depicts a fifty-year history in which the difficulties in arriving at a consensus among the fifteen allies, each understandably concerned with its own national interests, rival those of the alliance in dealing with the Communist threat. The implosion of the Soviet empire in the early 1990s left the organization in search of new reasons for its own existence. While centrifugal forces are arguably greater today than they were during the Cold War, none of the allies seeks to terminate this long entanglement.