Between War and Peace.
A Remnant From The Early Twentieth-Century
International Peace Movement
[International Feminism]. Boeckel, Florence Brewer. Between War and Peace. A Handbook for Peace Workers. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.
8vo.; interior lightly, evenly sunned; red cloth, stamped in gilt; a good copy.
First edition of a fairly self-descriptive volume, consisting of advice in chapter form for peace workers from its author, Florence Brewer Boeckel, who is listed as the “Educational Director of the National Council for the Prevention of War.” The book is divided into four parts, with each part subdivided into chapters. The Parts include: “Part I/Introduction;” “Part II/Material of Interest to Special Groups” (“Women and Peace” being a subsection of this chapter); “Part III/Introduction to Further Study of Influences For And Against World Peace;” and “Part IV/Materials for a Working Program.”
Boeckel’s work, published more than ten years after Key’s tome on International Peace Movements and Women described above, reflects a more advanced, mature movement no longer at its infancy, and a movement in which women played a central part (witness the author’s honorary title). And although Between War and Peace is not explicitly pitched to women it didn’t need to be: it was implicitly so, as women then (as now) formed the foundations for the International Peace Movement.
The word “Handbook” in the title is an apt one; whereas previous works on the subject sought to justify the need for an international peace movement, by 1928 this justification was no longer necessary and peace workers needed instructions for action, not rabble-rousing theory. Thus most of this book provides practical guidance for building and maintaining such a movement, although the author does slip into theory every now and again, as in this passage:
Once it is recognized that governments are the determining agency in issues of peace and war, it becomes obvious that the peace movement can achieve results only through political action….Work in many different directions is needed to organize the world on a peace basis, and there are various methods for the peaceful settlement of international disputes, applicable to different situations. This being true, the peace movement can never have sufficient unity for effective political action if it conceives its function to be the proposal of a single peace plan….Peace is inevitable. The function of the peace movement is to protect the immediate future against war, to save the world the sacrifice of another generation to an outgrown custom, by building up a public opinion which will hasten this development by requiring governments to concentrate their attention upon the peace problem before all others. (pp. 4-5)
An interesting volume that reflects the height of the early twentieth century, female-led, international peace movement.
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