A Durable Peace

This examination of the Middle East's troubled history traces the origins, development and politics of Israel's relationship with the Arab world and the West. It argues that peace with the Palestinians will leave Israel vulnerable to Iraq and Iran.

The African continent has been racked with war in the years since decolonization. In the aftermath of violent conflict, peace is often fragile. With Durable Peace, Taisier M. Ali and Robert O. Matthews have brought together leading scholars to discuss the experiences of ten African countries — Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe — in recovering from violent civil war. In this series of remarkable and thought-provoking essays, the contributors shed light on the process of peacebuilding. Collectively, they demonstrate that if efforts to restore peace in war-torn societies are to be successful, such efforts must be wide in scope, involving security and political issues, as well as economic development and socio-psychological reconciliation. Additionally, they must be extended over long periods of time and, above all else, anchored in the local community. Peacebuilding is a difficult process, subject to frequent setbacks, and sometimes outright failure. Durable Peace concludes that any peacebuilding effort must include at least four building blocks: a secure environment, new political institutions that are broadly representative, a healthy economy, and a mechanism for dealing with injustices of the past and future. How these blocks are put together will vary, but if they are arranged to fit the specific local circumstances, the outcome will likely be self-sustaining peace.

First published in 1940, this book suggested the basic principles upon which a new international economic order should be built at the end of the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to the possibility of constructing such an international order on the basis of divergent national economic systems – whether liberal or planned, capitalist or socialist. In undertaking this task the author combines theoretical analysis with a description of the immediate pre-war economic situation and writes in a language which is equally accessible to the economist and the layman.

Timely and pathbreaking, Securing the Peace is the first book to explore the complete spectrum of civil war terminations, including negotiated settlements, military victories by governments and rebels, and stalemates and ceasefires. Examining the outcomes of all civil war terminations since 1940, Monica Toft develops a general theory of postwar stability, showing how third-party guarantees may not be the best option. She demonstrates that thorough security-sector reform plays a critical role in establishing peace over the long term. Much of the thinking in this area has centered on third parties presiding over the maintenance of negotiated settlements, but the problem with this focus is that fewer than a quarter of recent civil wars have ended this way. Furthermore, these settlements have been precarious, often resulting in a recurrence of war. Toft finds that military victory, especially victory by rebels, lends itself to a more durable peace. She argues for the importance of the security sector--the police and military--and explains that victories are more stable when governments can maintain order. Toft presents statistical evaluations and in-depth case studies that include El Salvador, Sudan, and Uganda to reveal that where the security sector remains robust, stability and democracy are likely to follow. An original and thoughtful reassessment of civil war terminations, Securing the Peace will interest all those concerned about resolving our world's most pressing conflicts.

English translation of the Spanish version, 1917, of Open letter originally written in English and circulated in 1916; with critical introduction to the author's sojourn in the United States, 1916-1919.

Excerpt from The Basis of Durable Peace: Written at the Invitation of the New York Times Recent utterances of the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister have inclined the discerning public to the belief that the chief men of the warring nations in Europe would now give more hospitable consideration than they have shown in the past to proposals embodying the broad general principles upon which peace must be concluded. Sharing that belief, The New York Times invited, from a source the competence and authority of which would be recognized in both hemispheres, a series of contributions in which the terms of peace should be discussed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.