Author of groundbreaking works, including The Fate of the Earth, The Village of Ben Suc, and The Gift of Time (0-8050-5961-X), Jonathan Schell is a regular contributor to Harper's, Foreign Affairs, and The Nation. He lives in New York City.
"A lucid survey of alternatives to warfare...Building a case for civil noncooperation, Schell writes with discipline and urgency."
Liberally quoting political philosophers and politicians ranging from Jefferson and John Quincy Adams to Clausewitz, Gandhi, and Hannah Arendt, Schell embellishes and updates his strong views in favor of nuclear disarmament and related themes about which he has already written prolifically (e.g., The Fate of the Earth; The Unfinished Twentieth Century). In this provocative if overlong book, he concentrates on the history of war, the practice of nonviolence in violent environments, and the changed world of international politics after the fall of the Soviet Union and 9/11. He argues that the United States cannot and should not be the world's policeman because it is counterproductive to world peace. His solution is fourfold and controversial: a worldwide treaty abolishing nuclear weaponry, a "program of international intervention" that substitutes confederation and multiple national identities for monolithic sovereignty, collective enforcement of a prohibition against "crimes of humanity," and the formation of a "democratic league to support democracy worldwide and to restrain existing democracies from betraying their principles in their foreign policies." Readers will be left with questions concerning the meaning and practicality of Schell's ideas and also might take issue with his selective discussion of the history of war, which avoids events that don't support his ideas (there is very little discussion of World War II and of the U.S.-led NATO attack on Miloevic''s genocide against Bosnian and Serbian Muslims). For larger public libraries and many academic libraries.-Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
"A lucid survey of alternatives to warfare...Building a case for civil noncooperation, Schell writes with discipline and urgency."
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