Book Review: Peace, a World History by Antony Adolf
Peace, a World History
by Antony Adolf
www.politybooks.com
Reviewed by Wil Hough
“The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens,” Baha’u’allah, 1817–1892, founder of the Baha’i faith, proclaimed. Other ancient architects of our “most modern” conceptualizations include Dante Alighieri’s visionary work, On World Government—basis for lasting peace written way back in 1309 CE. This thesis by the author of The Divine Comedy was not published until the sixteenth century, however, during the era when the question “How can peace reign among the nations when there is abundance for only a few?” found its renaissance. The origins of republican government, democratic secularism, and passive resistance to intolerance were expressed by such surprising notables as Niccolo Machiavelli (Discourses on Livy), Sir Thomas Moore (Utopia), Victor Hugo (Reaching the Commoners), and Martin Luther (“Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, ‘Peace, peace,’ and there is no peace!”).
Best actualizing the seminal message of Jesus, and thereby linking the problems of the past with a solution for those of today, was Erasmus of Rotterdam (The Education of the Prince and On the War Against the Turks) with his exhortation, “Rather than stereotyping Turks as warmongers and using Islam as an excuse for war.” Erasmus urged Christians to “overcome their own warlike tendencies and religious intolerance.” The Baha’i view: “religious, racial, national, and political bias: all these prejudices strike at the very root of human life—one and all they beget bloodshed, and the ruination of the world.”
This is not a book for the casual reader of pulp fiction! However, while its obvious value is to students, scholars, policy-shapers, and activists, understanding how present forms of peace and peacemaking have evolved over the ages could provide valuable insight to writers as well. A solid historical foundation to period stories or even modern romances involving characters whose lives are impacted by peace, or the lack thereof, as in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and George Orwell’s 1984 is vital to literature. I, for one, feel greatly enriched for having taken this particular “history course,” although, like its representative novel, War and Peace, it must of necessity be read two or three times to gain full value.
Highly intriguing were the various forms of peace as in Saint Augustine’s question—“Is peace merely the absence of war?” or an ongoing dynamic all its own? After all, as Mr. Adolf graphically proves, peace can be maintained either at the point of a dictator’s gun or through the selfless activism of dedicated activists. Were we to annihilate all life on earth, could our planet ever after be said to repose in peace?
The author begins by speculating on how peace can even have a world history if it has been so rare as to be virtually nonexistent. He finishes with how the concept of “one world, one peace” is fatally flawed. How he gets from point Alpha to point Omega is the grist of the matter and far more than I could ever hope to explain in this brief review. I will point out that the journey through Peace becomes more enlightening with each new chapter—so much so that I would advise the first-time reader to begin reading the chapters in reverse. That is how I finally began to understand the historical dynamic of Peace; by traveling from the familiar issues of today through the alien of the past, rather than vice versa.
Adolph finishes by borrowing from Mazlov’s Pyramid of Human Needs and Motives to illustrate the basic needs of a peaceful society beginning with Corporeal Peace, leading through Sanctuarial Peace and Inner Peace, up to the capstone of World Peace, set in place through ongoing investigation and critical dialogue, incentives and deterrents, legitimacy and law.
The issues illustrated in this Pyramid of Peace, and further expostulated in the book, are summarized by Adolph as follows: “Principles and practices of one world, one peace are fatally flawed because if the world history of peace teaches us anything it is that peace and peacemaking are contingent on conditions and participants that are perpetually evolving.
“I undertook this book in the belief that coming closer to terms with how and why the world’s peaces came or ceased to be what they are is a first, necessary step in renewed directions towards world peace—only to discover that, of necessity, there is no last.”
How the author arrives at his formulation is well worth the time invested in Peace, a World History. My only complaint, other than that it should come with a college credit, deals with a paucity of study on how diminishing resources of the world might impact our future efforts towards world peace. But maybe that’s a writing opportunity worthy of further studies by the next available author.
Wil Hough is a Rose & Thorn senior editor with a deep interest in history, ethnology, and heresy.
Thank you for you comment. I am sorry to point it out, but "A Tale of Two Cities" was written by Charles Dickens, not by Victor Hugo.
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Yes its correct it was written by Charles Dickens a great author.
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We had to write a review for this book as a coursework for my Peace and Conflict course and we're pretty much on the same page.
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