The history of Peace is as old as the history of humanity itself, and certainly as old as War. War is often thought to be the natural state of humanity, Peace of any sort being fragile and fleeting. However, Peace in its various forms has been by far humanity's more common experience, as much of history has been relatively peaceful and orderly, while frameworks for security, law and justice have constantly been advancing. Thus, over the centuries the concept of Peace has been broadened from the absence of overt violence and war to something much more sophisticated, incorporating terms such als peacemaking, conflict resolution, and statebuilding.
This Research Guide is intended as a starting point for research on War and Peace. It provides the basic legal materials available in the Peace Palace Library, both in print and electronic format. Handbooks, leading articles, bibliographies, periodicals, serial publications and documents of interest are presented in the Selective Bibliography section. Links to the PPL Catalogue are inserted. The Library's subject headings (keywords) War, Peace and War and Peace Research are instrumental for searching through the Catalogue. Special attention is given to our subscriptions on databases, e-journals, e-books and other electronic resources. Finally, this Research Guide features links to relevant websites and other online resources of particular interest.
Reference works
- Baofu, P., The Future of Post-Human War and Peace: A Preface to a New Theory of Aggression and Pacificity, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
- Barash, D.P. (ed.), Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.
- Barash, D.P. and C.P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, Fourth Edition, 2018.
- Clausewitz, C.Ph.G. von, On the Nature of War, London, Penguin Books, 2005.
- Dinstein, Y., War, Aggression and Self-Defence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
- Durieux, B., J.-B. Jeangène Vilmer et F. Ramel (dir.), Dictionnaire de la Guerre et de la Paix, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2017.
- Edsforth, R. (gen. ed.), A Cultural History of Peace, London (etc.), Bloomsbury Academic, 2020:
Volume I: A Cultural History of Peace in Antiquity
Volume II: A Cultural History of Peace in the Medieval Age
Volume II: A Cultural History of Peace in in the Renaissance
Volume IV: A Cultural History of Peace in in the Age of Enlightenment
Volume V: A Cultural History of Peace in the Age of Empire
Volume VI: A Cultural History of Peace in the Modern Age
- Gat, A., The Causes of War & the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound?, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Gillespie, A., The Causes of War: Volume I-III, Oxford; Portland, Hart Publishing, 2013-2017.
- Goertz, G., P.F. Diehl and A. Balas, The Puzzle of Peace: The Evolution of Peace in the International System, New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Grayling, A.C., War: An Inquiry, New Haven; London, Yale University Press, 2017.
- Jäger, Th. und R. Beckmann (Hrsg.), Handbuch Kriegstheorien, Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011.
- Lazar, S. and H. Frowe (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War, New York, Oxford University Press, 2018.
- Lindley-French, J. and Y. Boyer (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of War, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Martel, G., Twentieth-Century War and Conflict: A Concise Encyclopedia, Chichester, Wiley Blackwell, 2015.
- Neff, S.C., War and the Law of Nations: A General History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
- Reiter, Dan, editor. Understanding War and Peace. Cambridge University Press, 2024.
- Richmond, O.P., Peace: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.
- Sidebottom, H., Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Selected books and articles
- Amster, R., Peace Ecology, Boulder; London, Paradigm Publishers, 2015.
- Bousquet, A., The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity, Second Edition, London, Hurst & Company, 2022.
- Capizzi, J.E., Politics, Justice, and War: Christian Governance and the Ethics of Warfare, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015.
- Chifu, Iulian, and Greg Simons. Rethinking Warfare in the 21st Century : The Influence and Effects of the Politics, Information and Communication Mix. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
- Colson, B., Napoleon on War, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press, 2015.
- Copeland, D.C., Economic Interdependence and War, Princeton; Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2015.
- DeRouen, K., An Introduction to Civil Wars, Los Angeles; London; New Delhi; Singapore; Washington DC, SAGE, CQ Press, 2015.
- Due-Gundersen, N., The Privatization of Warfare and Inherently Governmental Functions: Private Military Companies in Iraq and the State Monopoly of Regulated Force, Cambridge; Antwerp; Portland, Intersentia, 2016.
- Fabre, C., Cosmopolitan Peace, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2016.
- Freedman, L., The Future of War: A History, New York, NY, PublicAffairs, 2017.
- Frowe, H., The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction, London; New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.
- Ganser, D., Illegale Kriege: wie die NATO-Länder die UNO sabotieren: eine Chronik von Kuba bis Syrien, Zürich, Orell Füssli Verlag, 2017.
- García Hernán, D., La guerra y la paz: una historia cultural, Primera edición, Madrid, Cátedra, 2019.
- Hippler, Th. and M. Vec (eds.), Paradoxes of Peace in Nineteenth Century Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015.
- Jensen, J., Krieg um des Friedens willen: Zur Lehre vom gerechten Krieg, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2015.
- Jones, S.G., Waging Insurgent Warfare: Lessons from the Vietcong to the Islamic State, New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Liebsch, B. (Hrsg.), Radikalität und Zukunft des Krieges: Bernhard H. F. Taurecks Theorie des Krieges in interdisziplinärer Diskussion, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2021.
- Mann, J.K., May I Kill?: Just War, Non-violence, and Civilian Self-defense, Eugene, Oregon, Wipf & Stock, 2018.
- Mann, Michael. On Wars. Yale University Press, 2023.
- Moore, J.N., R.F. Turner, M. Mott, N.W. Freeman, and M. Kelly (eds), Lifting the Fog of War: New Thinking about War and War Prevention, Durham, North Carolina, Carolina Academic Press, 2019.
- Morgan, W.J. and A. Guilherme (eds.), Peace and War: Historical, Philosophical, and Anthropological Perspectives, 2020.
- O'Hanlon, M.E., The Future of Land Warfare, Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution Press, 2015.
- Preston, D., A Higher Form of Killing: Six Weeks in World War I That Forever Changed the Nature of Warfare, New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney, Bloomsbury Press, 2015.
- Quackenbush, S.L., International Conflict: Logic and Evidence, Los Angeles, SAGE Publications, 2015.
- Richmond, O.P., Peace in International Relations, Second Edition, London; New York, Routledge, 2020.
- Scheipers, S., Unlawful Combatants: A Genealogy of the Irregular Fighter, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015.
- Szanto, War and International Relations: A Critical Analysis, London; New York, Routledge, 2022.
- Schroer-Hippel, Gewaltfreie Männlichkeitsideale: psychologische Perspektiven auf zivilgesellschaftliche Friedensarbeit, Wiesbaden, Springer, 2017.
- Ucko, D.H., The Insurgent's Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail, London, Hurst & Company, 2022.
For all peer-reviewed articles in the PPL Catalogue, click here.