Imagine: Reflections on Peace

Book excerpt: When battlefield prowess and political manipulation are not enough to achieve peace through victory, we summon our best and brightest to negotiate an end; we celebrate peace settlements; and we give prizes, if not to victors, then to visionaries. We exalt peace as a human achievement, and justly so. But the reality of peace is flawed. The rewards of peace are elusive for the men and women who live in the post-conflict societies of our time. Why is it so difficult to make a good peace when it is so easy to imagine? That is the question behind Imagine: Reflections on Peace. In this stunning collection, photographic essays make grippingly palpable the stakes during war and peace. Samantha Power, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Justice Richard Goldstone, and Jonathan Powell, chief negotiator for the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement, are joined by world-renown writers in revealing the complexities of redemption and rebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and Rwanda. We hear first person accounts of survival and the search for inner peace, bringing the big picture to a personal level. With added insights from scholars and practitioners, the book offers a rare and fascinating glimpse into the unvarnished story of peace and a window into what it takes for societies and individuals to move forward after unspeakable brutality.