Peace and Conflict Studies

This core textbook comprehensively introduces students to the relatively young interdisciplinary field of peace and conflict studies. This field is unabashedly value-oriented, and although the authors are up front about their own values and opinions, they attempt to present all sides of complex debates to assist students in forming personal and social opinions, insisting only that those opinions be informed by serious intellectual effort. A hallmark of the book is an effort to encourage independent and critical thinking among student readers.
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"I teach an introductory course on this topic and can think of no other useful text in the field…I like the organization and scope of this volume—beginning with the nature and causes of war, then proceeding to ‘negative’ peace, and then ‘positive’ peace. I also liked the extensive use of literary fragments—my students would relate to that….There’s a need for it and I think the authors are on the right track."
MICHAEL KLARE, Hampshire College