This volume, first published in English in 1987 makes available an important part of Weil’s early writings. Although primarily known as a religious thinker, she devoted enormous energy in her formative years to her work as a political activist and as a philosopher/teacher. This book reveals these other sides of Weil and demonstrates the lines of continuity underlying her whole thought. Written between 1929 and 1941 the book covers a crucial and transitional period in Weil’s life. Taken together they represent invaluable primary source material on the evolution of Weil’s life and on her chosen method of abstracting elements from her personal experience and transmuting that experience into considered thought. Even when highly theoretical, her writing was always concerned with the application of her intelligence to concrete problems of human existence.

This book comprises findings from the author's wide-ranging research since 1948 on the unresolved Arab/Israel protracted conflict. Brecher reflects back on his detailed analysis of the UN Commission created in November 1947, and his near-seven decades of research and publications on this complex protracted conflict continued since the first of nine Arab/Israeli wars. The book includes an analysis of the crucial early phase of the unresolved struggle for control of Jerusalem in 1948-49 and beyond, based on extensive interviews with Israel’s leaders and prominent Egyptian senior officials, journalists and academics. It addresses the many diverse attempts at conflict resolution, including a peace plan to resolve the Arab/Israel conflict of the author's own design. It concludes with historical reflections about Israel’s behavior, domestically and externally, in 1948-1949 and 2008 and beyond. No other book on this protracted conflict contains so many important interviews with the first two generations of Israeli leaders and Egyptian officials and academics, and no other author can speak from such a deep and prolonged engagement.

Feminist, educator, Quaker, and physicist, Ursula Franklin has long been considered one of Canada's foremost advocates and practitioners of pacifism. The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map is a comprehensive collection of her work, and demonstrates subtle, yet critical, linkages across a range of subjects: the pursuit of peace and social justice, theology, feminism, environmental protection, education, government, and citizen activism. This thoughtful collection, drawn from more than four decades of research and teaching, brings readers into an intimate discussion with Franklin, and makes a passionate case for how to build a society centered around peace.

In this fundamental analysis, Rapoport asks: Why do we have wars? Doesn't humanity always seem on the verge of self-annihilation? Is there something in human genetic structure that makes people want to kill each other? Perhaps this impulse is a matter of good versus evil, or just plain human nature. Rapoport moves beyond cliches by claiming that the sources of modern violence reside in the imbalance between a lag in the system of values inherited from the past and the structure of science and technology that awaits no revision of values to move ahead. As a result, Rapoport argues that the study of war and peace should be considered a science, just like biology or, for that matter, political science. The same rules of empirical engagement and experimentation should apply. Before we can have a theory of peace, we need a methodology of conflict. Using the writings of thinkers who have made significant contributions to the predominant ideas and ideals of our society, Rapoport weaves together the strands of independent thought and research into a single, thought-provoking work. After investigating the whys of violence, using ideological, psychological, strategic, and systemic perspective, Rapoport moves to an in-depth analysis of possible varieties of conflict resolution. He explores such mechanisms as mediation, education, and applying the results of scientific research. He documents the impact of ideologies countervailing dominant ones that place obstacles in the way of peacemaking. Rapoport argues that conciliation and game theories can be utilized to replace the concept of winner take all or total victory. The Origins of Violence is a needed contribution to our understanding of warfare, and provides a forward-looking perspective that can be of wide use to each of the policy sciences, starting with military strategy and ending with international development.