Peace, Love & Liberty - Softcover

Tom G. Palmer; Steven Pinker; Emmanuel Martin; Erik Gartzke; Robert M. S. McDonald; Justin Logan; Radley Balko; Sarah Skwire; Cathy Reisenwitz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0898031761 ISBN 13: 9780898031768

Publisher: Jameson Books, Inc., 2014

Synopsis

There is no such thing as being 'undecided' about war. It is a binary choice. If you re not for it, you have to be against it.
The essays in this book offer evidence and arguments for peace. The writers advance peace not merely as a moral ideal or even a desirable goal, but as an eminently practical objective. Too often peace activists have thought it sufficient merely to call for peace and to denounce war, without investigating the economic, social, political, and psychological conditions of peace. They may oppose this or that war, without considering what causes wars--for example, fallacies about clashes of civilizations, economic conflict, protectionism, and the zero-sum worldview--and then addressing those causes.
Peace is not an impractical fantasy, nor is it something for which one must sacrifice prosperity or progress or freedom. In fact, peace, freedom, prosperity, and progress go hand-in-hand.
The essays in this book appeal to the mind. They are anchored in sound history, economic reality, empirical psychology, political science, and hard-headed logic, as well as art and the aesthetic imagination. If the heart is to be engaged on behalf of peace, it should be engaged through the mind.

About this title

About the Author:

Dr. Tom G. Palmer is executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Network. He oversees the work of teams working around the world to advance the principles of classical liberalism and works with a global network of think tanks and research institutes. Dr. Palmer is a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, where he was formerly vice president for international programs and director of the Center for the Promotion of Human Rights.
He was an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford University, and a vice president of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. He is a member of the board of advisors of Students For Liberty.
He has published reviews and articles on politics and morality in scholarly journals such as the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Ethics, Critical Review, and Constitutional Political Economy, as well as in publications such as Slate, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Die Welt, Al Hayat, Caixing, The Washington Post, and The Spectator of London.
He received his BA in liberal arts from St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland, his MA in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and his doctorate in politics from Oxford University. His scholarship has been published in books from Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and other academic publishers.
He is the author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice(expanded edition published in 2014); the editor of The Morality of Capitalism, After the Welfare State and Why Liberty.

Review:

Those who favor peace need to ask the hard questions of what institutions and practices promote it. Likewise, they need to convince more people that violence rarely achieves the lofty goals that war advocates claim to value.
This book is an excellent starting point on both counts, explaining that the sentiment of peace is laudable, but without evidence and rigorous reasoning,just a sentiment.
--Jeffrey Miron, Department of Economics, Harvard University

The sociologist Charles Tilly famously stated that War made the state and the state made war.
This neat little anthology illustrates the wisdom of those words and why any freedom-loving person should oppose all use of the destructive forces of the state for anything but self-defense.
--Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

About this edition

• Publisher: Jameson Books, Inc.
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0898031761
• ISBN 13: 9780898031768
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Tom G. Palmer