Forgotten Peace examines Colombian society’s attempt to move beyond the Western Hemisphere’s worst mid-century conflict and shows how that effort molded notions of belonging and understandings of the past. Robert A. Karl reconstructs encounters between government officials, rural peoples, provincial elites, and urban intellectuals during a crucial conjuncture that saw reformist optimism transform into alienation. In addition to offering a sweeping reinterpretation of Colombian history—including the most detailed account of the origins of the FARC insurgency in any language—Karl provides a Colombian vantage on global processes of democratic transition, development, and memory formation in the 1950s and 1960s. Broad in scope, Forgotten Peace challenges contemporary theories of violence in Latin America.

In the early hours of April 22, 1914, American President Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to seize the port of Veracruz in an attempt to alter the course of the Mexican Revolution. As a result, the United States seemed on the brink of war with Mexico. An international uproar ensued. The governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Surprisingly, both the United States and Mexico accepted their offer and all parties agreed to meet at an international peace conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario. For Canadians, the conference provided an unexpected spectacle on their doorstep, combining high diplomacy and low intrigue around the gardens and cataracts of Canada's most famous natural attraction. For the diplomats involved, it proved to be an ephemeral high point in the nascent pan-American movement. After it ended, the conference dropped out of historical memory. This is the first full account of the Niagara Falls Peace Conference to be published in North America since 1914. The author carefully reconstructs what happened at Niagara Falls, examining its historical significance for Canada's relationship with the Americas. From this almost forgotten event he draws important lessons on the conduct of international mediation and the perils of middle-power diplomacy.

American edition (New York, W. Morrow & co., 1939) has title: The forgotten peace, Brest-Litovsk) Bibliography: p. 455-459.

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Hell No: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement -- Introduction -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- Conclusion -- Further Reading -- Acknowledgments

A narrative history of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference, the bipartisan, last-ditch effort to prevent the Civil War, an effort that nearly averted the carnage that followed. In February 1861, most of AmericaÆs great statesmenùincluding a former president, dozens of current and former senators, Supreme Court justices, governors, and congressmenùcame together at the historic Willard Hotel in a desperate attempt to stave off Civil War. Seven southern states had already seceded, and the conferees battled against time to craft a compromise to protect slavery and thus preserve the union and prevent war. Participants included former President John Tyler, General William ShermanÆs Catholic step-father, General Winfield Scott, and LincolnÆs future Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chaseùand from a room upstairs at the hotel, Lincoln himself. Revelatory and definitive, The Peace That Almost Was demonstrates that slavery was the main issue of the conferenceùand thus of the war itselfùand that no matter the shared faith, family, and friendships of the participants, ultimately no compromise could be reached.

The Forgotten Ally is a beautifully written book, as the New York Times review describes it—The expression of one of the most passionately generous hearts in the writing profession. Van Paassen writes with the power and fervor of a latter-day prophet, without forgetting the need for facts, figures and documentation.—Review of Chicago Sun Times. Shortly after World War One, Van Paassen started his career as a journalist at The Globe, a Canadian newspaper in Toronto. His next job as a journalist was at the great southern liberal newspaper, The Atlanta Constitution. This is where Van Paassen actively became interested in Jewish affairs after interviewing a Rabbi from New York who had just returned from Mandatory Palestine. From this point on, Van Paassen took a great personal interest in the issues of Palestine and the plight of European Jewry. In 1925, he became the foreign correspondent for the New York Evening World, which placed him in Paris. The stage was being set for World War Two and the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy from which Van Paassen passionately reported. In 1931, the New York Evening World stopped publishing; Van Paassen remained in France and wrote for the Globe and its competitor the Toronto Star. In 1933, Van Paassen, a fluent German speaker, reported on the Nazis and courageously exposed the doctrines and policies of Hitler's fascist regime. His news reports greatly upset the Nazis, and the Toronto Star became known as "atrocity propaganda." The newspaper was banned from Germany and Van Paassen was expelled but not before he was imprisoned by the Nazis for several weeks, which included some physical blows to Van Paassen's own person. Van Paassen spent quite some time in Palestine and wrote extensively for his newspapers and wrote many books on the subject.-Print ed.