Peace and Conflict Studies

The thoroughly updated Fourth Edition of the gold standard text explores historical and current topics in today’s rapidly changing world to provide a comprehensive introduction to peace and conflict studies. The authors offer an insightful analysis of 21st-century global affairs, including such timely topics as ISIS, the nature of violence and nonviolence, cutting-edge military technologies, the Terrorism and Global Peace Indexes, and the latest developments in Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Comprehensive yet written in a student-friendly and accessible style, the text represents a commitment to inspire readers to create a better world through an understanding of what has happened and what is happening, and therefore what is likely to take place in the future.

David P. Barash (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is a professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. His studies span animal behavior, evolution, and social psychology, with concentrations in sociobiology, psychological aspects of the arms race and nuclear war, and peace studies. A prolific author and researcher, he has written more than 270 technical articles and 40 books ranging from monographs to college textbooks to popular trade titles. His book Introduction to Peace Studies (1991) was the first comprehensive undergraduate textbook in the field of Peace Studies. His book Threats: Intimidation and its Discontents (2020, Oxford University Press), is especially concerned with debunking nuclear deterrence.

Charles P. Webel (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is presently a professor of international relations and philosophy at the University of New York in Prague. He previously held the Delp- Wilkinson Chair in Peace Studies at Chapman University. A five-time Fulbright Scholar and graduate of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, he has conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University, the Max Planck Institute, and the Universities of Paris, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. He has also taught in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Berkeley, the Honors College of University of South Florida, and at Harvard College. He is the author or editor of many articles and nine books, including the forthcoming The Fate of this World and the Future of Humanity.