Peace cultures thrive on and are nourished by visions of how things might be, in a world where sharing and caring are part of the accepted lifeways for everyone.
Elise Boulding
About This Website
The purpose of this website, opened on the Web in January 2005, is to promote peacefulness through the study of societies that are already peaceful. The design and colors attempt to reflect the quiet ways and natural environments of many of the world’s nonviolent peoples.
Two epigraphs capture the essence of this site. “Respect for the rights of others is peace,” a statement by the great nineteenth-century Zapotec Mexican leader Benito Juárez, epitomizes much of the literature about peaceful societies. "Anything that exists is possible," by Kenneth Boulding, one of the foremost peace scholars of the 20th century, expresses our conviction that since peaceful societies exist in many parts of the world, humans may be able to develop cultures of peace everywhere.
This website is honored to have had Dr. Elise Boulding as Website Patron. After a long career as an internationally-prominent peace scholar, teacher, and social activist, Dr. Boulding continued, during her retirement years, to conduct workshops that imaged a world at peace. She was inspired by the example of the peaceful societies and, in turn, inspired us by incorporating some of the literature of this field into her book, Cultures of Peace (2000), a milestone publication.
Four reviewers provide generous input into the contents and design of this site; even more critically, they have encouraged and supported the concept from the beginning. In addition, two technical consultants give a lot of their time and expertise—without their patience and remarkable skills this site could not have come about. Of course, the ultimate responsibility for the content and design lies with the website's author, designer, administrator. We look forward to the reactions, comments, questions, and suggestions for improvements from our visitors in further developing this project.
Website Patron
Elise Boulding. Ph.D., July 6, 1920 - June 24, 2010. Professor of Sociology, Emerita, Dartmouth College. Books: Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000); The Future: Images and Processes (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995—co-author); The Underside of History: A View of Women Through Time, revised edition (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992); One Small Plot of Heaven: Reflections on Family Life by a Quaker Sociologist (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications, 1989); Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World (New York: Teachers College Press, 1988) and numerous others. Elise was active in numerous local, national, and international non-governmental organizations, such as: International Peace Research Association (Secretary General, 1989-91); Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (International Chair, 1967-70); Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development, and many other groups.
For additional information about Elise Boulding, please see in this website a review of a biography of her, Elise Boulding: A Life in the Cause of Peace (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2005), by Mary Lee Morrison. Elise was a prominent Quaker and her own spiritual autobiography, Born Remembering, was published in 1975 as a Pendle Hill pamphlet.
Website Author, Designer, Administrator:
Bruce D. Bonta. MLS, 1969 (University of Maine). Associate Librarian Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University. Book: Peaceful Peoples: An Annotated Bibliography (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1993). Several journal articles and papers about peaceful societies. Website
Website Reviewers:
Robert Knox Dentan. Ph.D., 1965 (Yale University). Professor, Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Books: The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya, (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1979); Co-author, Malaysia and the Original People: A Case Study of the Impact of Development on Indigenous Peoples (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997). Numerous articles in journals and scholarly books on the Semai, peaceful societies, and other subjects. Other research interests: cultural anthropology, social organization, ecology, ritual; Southeast Asia, Africa. Website
Douglas P. Fry. Ph.D., 1986 (Indiana University). Docent and Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland. Books: The Human Potential for Peace: Challenging the War Assumption (Oxford University Press, 2005); co-editor, Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies around the World ( New York: Routledge, 2003); co-editor, Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution: Alternatives to Violence (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997). Numerous articles in journals and scholarly books on the Zapotec, peaceful societies, and other subjects. Other research interests: conflict studies, conflict resolution, aggression, applied anthropology, human ethology & evolution.
Dale Hess. Ph.D., 1968 (University of Washington). Model Development Group, Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, Australian Government (Retired). Peace and nonviolence publications: co-author, The Paradox of Economic Growth and Inequity (Hampton, Victoria, Australia: Victorian Association for Peace Studies, 1994); co-editor, The Peace Dossier Series, 1982 – 1992 (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Victorian Association for Peace Studies, 1992). Helped organize courses on appropriate technology, hunger, rebuilding Vietnam, peace conversion and "Our World in Crisis." Member of the Australia Yearly Meeting Peace and Social Testimonies Committee, the Board of the Herb Feith Foundation, Pax Christi, Bayside Oxfam Group, and the Victorian Association for Peace Studies.
Leslie E. Sponsel. Ph.D., 1981 (Cornell University). Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Books: co-editor, The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994); editor, Endangered Peoples of Southeast and East Asia: Struggles to Survive and Thrive ( Westport , CT: Greenwood, 2000); other books and numerous articles in journals and scholarly books on tropical deforestation, Buddhism, ecology, indigenous societies and other subjects. Other research interests: Thailand, Venezuela, foraging societies, tropical forests, conservation of biodiversity, anthropology of religion, spiritual ecology, sacred places, cultural change, and advocacy anthropology. Website
Technical Consultants:
Matthew Albright. Senior Computer Scientist, Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, CA.
Jeffrey T. Suydam. Senior Network Analyst, Admiral Insurance Company, Cherry Hill, NJ.
Website Assessment: July 2006
Updates: News and Reviews:
Current
July 1, 2010. Peaceful Societies Joins Facebook
December 31, 2009. Five Years of Peaceful Societies
January 22, 2009. President Obama and a Tristan Baby
May 29, 2008. News and Reviews Stories Resume—Sort of
May 8, 2008. News and Reviews Feature to be Suspended for a Few Weeks
August 3, 2006. Subject List for Website News and Reviews
Older Stories
All stories in this website about the website itself are listed in the News and Reviews Subject Listing