Reading for Action
Reading is one way of learning. It does not replace reflecting on experience or meditation or intuition, but reading books and reports can be a powerful tool for appropriate action, for innovation and creativity.
Reading can provide insights into new organizational structures and working relationships. In the Association of World Citizens‘ central activity of conflict resolution, books can provide analysis of power relations and the patterns of struggle centered on class, ethnic and religious conflicts and relations among States.
Books can also develop values of respect, benevolence and gratitude toward one another, toward dialogue and reconciliation.
The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding: Stories and Lessons
Featured Image: This symbolically represents an holistic approach to peacebuilding. By Consensusafp, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. John W. McDonald with Noa Zanolli. The Shifting Grounds of Conflict…
Thomas Nordstrom. A World Government in Action.
Featured Image: Photo by Juliana Kozoski on Unsplash. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020, 147pp.) Thomas Nordstrom has written a useful book which more accurately should have been calles: “The Need…
U. N. Day: Strengthening and Reforming.
Featured Image: Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pixabay By René Wadlow. October 24 is United Nations (U. N.) Day; marking the day when there were enough ratifications; including those…
Louise Diamond. The Courage For Peace.
Featured Image: Photo by Avi Chomotovski in Pixabay (Berkeley, CA : Conari Press, 2000, 263pp). Louise Diamond; a co-founder of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Washington, DC; works in areas…
Paulo Freire: Popular Participation.
Featured Image: Paulo Freire Panel. CEFORTEPE – Center for Training, Technology and Educational Research Prof. “Milton de Almeida Santos”, SME-Campinas. By Luiz Carlos Cappellano, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. By…
U.N. General Assembly: Can It Provide the Needed Global Leadership?
Featured Image by Basil D Soufi, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons 27 Sep 2019 – The international relations specialist Stanley Hoffmann once quipped: “Goals are easy to describe. What…
Robert Trent Vinson. Albert Luthuli.
Featured Picture: JRamatsui, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2018) As Robert Vinson highlights “When Albert Luthuli; president of the African National Congress (ANC). …
David Cortright Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 376pp.) David Cortright; Director of Policy Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; and an activist…
David W. Augsburger. Conflict Mediation Across Cultures : Pathways and Patterns.
Photo by Charl Folscher on Unsplash. (Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, 310pp). John Paul Lederach tells the story of one of his intercultural mediation workshops in Panama where: “someone…
Nicosia Beyond Barriers. Voices From A Divided City
A.Savin (Wikimedia Commons · WikiPhotoSpace), FAL, Alev Adil, Aydin Mehmet Ali, Bahriye Kemal, Maria Petrides (Eds.) (London: Saqi Books, 2019, 249pp.) Negotiations on the future of Cyprus encouraged by the United Nations remain…