Peace and Conflict Studies

"I teach an introductory course on this topic and can think of no other useful text in the field...I like the organization and scope of this volume--beginning with the nature and causes of war, then proceeding to 'negative' peace, and then 'positive' peace. I also liked the extensive use of literary fragments--my students would relate to that....There's a need for it and I think the authors are on the right track."

-MICHAEL KLARE, Hampshire College

This core textbook comprehensively introduces students to the relatively young interdisciplinary field of peace and conflict studies. This field is unabashedly value-oriented, and although the authors are up front about their own values and opinions, they attempt to present all sides of complex debates to assist students in forming personal and social opinions, insisting only that those opinions be informed by serious intellectual effort. A hallmark of the book is an effort to encourage independent and critical thinking among student readers. 

Booknews

Revising and expanding Barash's core textbook , he and Webel introduce an area of human science that is unabashedly value oriented, and linked to such arenas as poverty, environmental threats, and the denial of human rights. They cover the promise of peace and the problems of war, the reasons for wars, and building negative and positive peace. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Charles Webel received a multidisciplinary Ph.D. in Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, and Philosophy in 1976 from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, he has pursued post-doctoral studies at Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute and at the Universities of Paris, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. A lecturer in the School of Social Welfare at Berkeley, his major fields of concentration include social and political theory; peace and conflict studies; social, political, and cultural psychology; and the philosophy of science and the social sciences. In addition to his academic career, he briefly enjoyed a career in publishing as executive editor of social sciences, social work, and philosophy at Columbia University Press (1980-83).

David P. Barash received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 and has been with the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington since 1973. His studies span animal behavior and social psychology, with concentrations in sociobiology, psychological aspects of the arms race and nuclear war, peace studies, and animal behavior and evolution. A prolific author, he has written 180 technical articles and 19 books ranging from monographs (Marmots: Social Behavior & Ecology) to college textbooks (Sociobiology & Behavior) to popular trade titles (The Great Outdoors and The Whisperings Within). His 1991 Wadsworth text, Introduction to Peace Studies, upon which the current book is derived, helped to shape and define Peace Studies as a formal field of inquiry.