In 1915, carmaker Henry Ford organized and launched an extraordinary mission to drive the warring parties in World War I to the peace table. He failed miserably. Here, in this essay, Ford biographer Frank Ernest Hill and Pulitzer-Prize winner Allen Nevins detail Ford's pacifist adventure.
The First World War was an epic event of huge proportions that lasted over four years and involved the armies of more than twenty nations, resulting in 30 million casualties, including more than 8 million killed. Set against the backdrop of this massive carnage, The Search for Negotiated Peace is the gripping story of the events that moved high profile American and European citizens, particularly women, into the international peace movement. This small, transatlantic network put forth proposals for changing the international system of negotiation. They supported non-annexationist war aims and attempted to discredit nations’ secret diplomacy, militarism and narrowly nationalistic practices. Instead, they wanted to develop a ‘new diplomacy.’ David Patterson skillfully develops the interactions of many of the notable leaders of the movement, including Jane Addams, Aletta Jacobs, and Rosika Schwimmer, into an absorbing narrative that brings together the various strands of women's history, international diplomatic history, and peace history for the first time. The Search for Negotiated Peace is an essential read for anyone interested in the social history of World War I and the foundations of citizen activism today.
This book considers the experience of women as children and as mothers, and feminist critiques of gender as important sources of insight into the conduct, dynamics, and motivation of a feminist peace politics, examining the history, the scope, and the current condition of women's peace movements.
Thrown from an automobile just five weeks before his wedding, Art Berg was left a quadriplegic. In FINDING PEACE IN TROUBLED WATERS, he shares his experiences and describes ten concepts that have permitted him not only to survive his paralyzing accident, but to be successful and live well and happily. Berg provides a life preserver for those who, like he was, are struggling to keep from drowning in sorrow or self-pity while battered by waves of adversity.
Politicians of every stripe frequently invoke the Marshall Plan in support of programs aimed at using American wealth to extend the nation's power and influence, solve intractable third-world economic problems, and combat world hunger and disease. Do any of these impassioned advocates understand why the Marshall Plan succeeded where so many subsequent aid plans have not? Historian Nicolaus Mills explores the Marshall Plan in all its dimensions to provide valuable lessons from the past about what America can and cannot do as a superpower.
Informal account of the peace mission of the Oscar 2d, chartered by Henry Ford in December, 1915, to stop the war in Europe, by a journalist who participated in the voyage.
A narrative history of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference, the bipartisan, last-ditch effort to prevent the Civil War, an effort that nearly averted the carnage that followed. In February 1861, most of AmericaÆs great statesmenùincluding a former president, dozens of current and former senators, Supreme Court justices, governors, and congressmenùcame together at the historic Willard Hotel in a desperate attempt to stave off Civil War. Seven southern states had already seceded, and the conferees battled against time to craft a compromise to protect slavery and thus preserve the union and prevent war. Participants included former President John Tyler, General William ShermanÆs Catholic step-father, General Winfield Scott, and LincolnÆs future Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chaseùand from a room upstairs at the hotel, Lincoln himself. Revelatory and definitive, The Peace That Almost Was demonstrates that slavery was the main issue of the conferenceùand thus of the war itselfùand that no matter the shared faith, family, and friendships of the participants, ultimately no compromise could be reached.