Over twenty years ago when he was running for President, John Kennedy published a book called Profiles in Courage. He was interested in conventional heroes, principled and dedicated, who devoted themselves to holding "the ship of State to its true course." Charles DeBenedetti's timely book is about equally principled heroes who were frequently at odds with the direction the American ship of State was taking at home and abroad. The people who gave shape to the American peace movement in the twentieth century were Jane Addams, Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, Albert Einstein, A. J. Muste, Norman Cousins, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daniel and Philip Berrigan. These dynamic and individualistic people are discussed in separate mini-biographies in this volume.

As the United States tries to grapple with the Soviet downing of the Korean 747, multiple conflicts in Central America and the Middle East, war in Afghanistan, and potential problems in Africa and elsewhere, Charles DeBenedetti's concise and comprehensive survey of the peace movement or movements in American history is more timely than ever.

"DeBenedetti... has produced the new synthesis which peace scholarship has so long needed." Reviews in American History

" The Peace Reform in American History]conveys forcefully the heterogeneity of the groups... that have made up the drive for peace; it sets developments in their domestic and international context; it relates peace reform to other movements; it is written with verve and clarity." Journal of American Studies"

An American Ordeal is a comprehensive interpretive history that covers the anti-war movement in the USA throughout the entire Vietnam era. This study offers a narrative of the struggle that took place on the home front, even as the war itself was being waged in South-east Asia. Portraying the movement as a social force that energized people culturally yet failed to develop enduring political strength, the authors view the war as part of the long tradition of peace activism in America, as well as a process that ultimately spurred citizens to take decisive action against their government's policy. Beginning with the rise of a liberal peace movement against atmospheric nuclear testing from 1955 to 1963, the authors describe the emergence of radical pacifists and politically motivated groups who eventually created a diverse coalition against the Vietnam War. They examine how extremist elements came to dominate the movement in the late 1960s, to be supplanted by a larger consensus of liberal and pacifist groups in the early 1970s.