First awarded in 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize has contended with the key issues of the age, from the first and second world wars, through the cold war, to the war against terror, and more. This title examines the controversial history of the world's most famous prize and asks: Just how do we define peace, anyway?
In this book, Jay Nordlinger gives a history of what the subtitle calls "the most famous and controversial prize in the world.? The Nobel Peace Prize, like the other Nobel prizes, began in 1901. So we have a neat, sweeping history of the 20th century, and about a decade beyond. The Nobel prize involves a first world war, a second world war, a cold war, a terror war, and more. It contends with many of the key issues of modern times, and of life itself.
It also presents a parade of interesting people-more than a hundred laureates, not a dullard in the bunch. Some of these laureates have been historic statesmen, such as Roosevelt (Teddy) and Mandela. Some have been heroes or saints, such as Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa. Some belong in other categories-where would you place Arafat? Controversies also swirl around the awards to Kissinger, Gorbachev, Gore, and Obama, to name just a handful.
Probably no figure in this book is more interesting than a non-laureate: Alfred Nobel, the Swedish scientist and entrepreneur who started the prizes. The book also addresses "missing laureates,? people who did not win the peace prize but might have, or should have (Gandhi?).
Peace, They Say is enlightening and enriching, and sometimes even fun. It has its opinions, but it also provides what is necessary for readers to form their own opinions. What is peace, anyway? All these people who have been crowned "champions of peace,? and the world's foremost-should they have been? Such is the stuff this book is made on.
“This delightful book entertained me and enriched my knowledge. How many books do that? If you pick it up, I defy you to put it down until you’ve finished it.”
Lou Cannon, historian and journalist
“In an absorbingly well-researched, well-written and thoughtful history of the Peace Prize . . . Nordlinger looks with a critical but not jaundiced eye at the laureates. . . . In the course of his deliberations he has thought deeply about what genuinely constitutes peace.”
Andrew Roberts, historian
“A masterly book, which dissects its notoriously controversial subject with precision, elegance, and wit. A splendid job!”
Solomon Volkov, Radio Liberty / Radio Free Europe
“. . . like a history of the modern world, told through the prism of the prize, full of characters both familiar and unfamiliar, and well written in the style we’ve come to expect.”
John J. Miller, author, director of journalism at Hillsdale College
