Peace Studies

Conflict Zone, Comfort Zone
Ethics, Pedagogy, and Effecting Change in Field-Based Courses
Edited by Agnieszka Paczyńska and Susan F. Hirsch

By taking students out of their comfort zone, field-based courses—which are increasingly popular in secondary and postsecondary education—have the potential to be deep, transformative learning experiences. But what happens when the field in question is a site of active or recent conflict? In Conflict Zone, Comfort Zone, editors Agnieszka Paczyńska and Susan F. Hirsch highlight new approaches to field-based learning in conflict zones worldwide.

Prelude to Genocide
Arusha, Rwanda, and the Failure of Diplomacy
By David Rawson

David Rawson draws on declassified documents and his own experiences as the initial US observer of the 1993 Rwandan peace talks at Arusha to seek out what led to the Rwandan genocide. The result is a commanding blend of diplomatic history and analysis of the crisis and of what happens generally when conflict resolution and diplomacy fall short.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
By Mary Ingouville Burton

In 1995, South Africa’s new government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a lynchpin of the country’s journey forward from apartheid. In contrast to the Nuremberg Trials and other retributive responses to atrocities, the TRC’s emphasis on reconciliation marked a restorative approach to addressing human rights violations and their legacies. The hearings, headed by Bishop Desmond Tutu, began in spring of 1996.

Captured Peace
Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador
By Christine J. Wade

The most comprehensive, up-to-date book on Salvadoran politics of the last twenty-five years.

Failed States and Fragile Societies
A New World Disorder?
Edited by Ingo Trauschweizer and Steven M. Miner

In case studies from the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq, and Colombia, Failed States and Fragile Societies argues that early intervention to stabilize social, economic, and political systems offers the greatest promise, whereas military intervention at a later stage is both costlier and less likely to succeed.

Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa
Edited by Devon Curtis and Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa
· Foreword by Adekeye Adebajo

Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa is a critical reflection on peacebuilding efforts in Africa. The authors expose the tensions and contradictions in different clusters of peacebuilding activities, including peace negotiations; statebuilding; security sector governance; and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration.

Violence
Analysis, Intervention, and Prevention
By Sean Byrne and Jessica Senehi

In a world desperate to comprehend and address what appears to be an ever-enlarging explosion of violence, this book provides important insights into crucial contemporary issues, with violence providing the lens. Violence: Analysis, Intervention, and Prevention provides a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis and resolution of violent conflicts.

The Resolution of African Conflicts
The Management of Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Edited by Alfred Nhema and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

“These two volumes clearly demonstrate the efforts by a wide range of African scholars to explain the roots, routes, regimes and resolution of African conflicts and how to re-build post-conflict societies. They offer sober and serious analyses, eschewing the sensationalism of the western media and the sophistry of some of the scholars in the global North for whom African conflicts are at worst a distraction and at best a confirmation of their pet racist and petty universalist theories.”

The Roots of African Conflicts
The Causes and Costs
Edited by Alfred Nhema and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

“Africa is no more prone to violent conflicts than other regions. Indeed, Africa’s share of the more than 180 million people who died from conflicts and atrocities in the twentieth century is relatively modest.… This is not to underestimate the immense impact of violent conflicts on Africa; it is merely to emphasize the need for more balanced debate and commentary.”

Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979
By Jonathan Huener

Few places in the world carry as heavy a burden of history as Auschwitz. Recognized and remembered as the most prominent site of Nazi crimes, Auschwitz has had tremendous symbolic weight in the postwar world. Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration is a history of the Auschwitz memorial site in the years of the Polish People's Republic.

Perspectives on War and Peace in Central America
Edited by Sung Ho Kim and Thomas W. Walker

This volume records the perspectives of a highly diverse group of prominent individuals who met late in 1988 in an important international symposium concerned with the continuing conflicts in Central America.