Peter Brock
Personal Information
Description
A preeminent authority on East European history and the world's foremost scholar on the history of world-wide pacifism, Peter Brock, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Toronto, died at his home on Sunday, 28 May 2006, at the age of 86. Engaged in scholarship until the end, his last two books were published in the final months of his life, one on Polish history, which he co-edited,' and the other on grass-roots resistance to war. Citation - In Memoriam
Books
Liberty and conscience
While objections in the 20th century have been well documented there has been little study of pacifist beliefs in America's early conflicts. This work seeks to remedy this by shedding new light on early US religious and military history.
The political and social doctrines of the Unity of Czech Brethren in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
Challenge to Mars
Emerging in 1918 from the devastation of World War I, the modern pacifist movement expanded rapidly and soon became organized on a transnational basis. These essays present aspects of the movement's development to the end of the Second World War. The fourteen essays in Part I look at the interwar years, which gave rise to an array of pacifist organizations, both religious and humanist, throughout Europe and North America. Twelve essays in Part II deal with the brutal challenge to pacifist ideals posed by the Second World War and include a look at the fate of those courageous Germans who refused to fight for Hitler. The struggles of Christian pacifism in Japan and the satyagraha (non-violent soul force) of Gandhi in India are the focus of the two closing studies (Part III). These twenty-eight essays by scholars from eleven countries present an impressive overview of this remarkable movement, at the same time drawing out many little-known areas of pacifist activity.