Famous authors and illustrators present a collection of prose and poetry exploring aspects of peace, from issues of personal and community violence to international conflict, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the environmental dangers of nuclear proliferation.

Olivia does not surrender to the fears that paralyse her mother and other adults when they encounter the cicadas. She approaches lifes challenges with a positive attitude.

The second book in the Why I Write series provides generous insight into the creative process of the award-winning Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard “Why I Write” may prove to be the most difficult question Karl Ove Knausgaard has struggled to answer yet it is central to the project of one of the most influential writers working today. To write, for the Norwegian artist, is to resist easy thinking and preconceived notions that inhibit awareness of our lives. Knausgaard writes to “erode [his] own notions about the world. . . . It is one thing to know something, another to write about it.” The key to enhanced living is the ability to hit upon something inadvertently, to regard it from a position of defenselessness and unknowing. A deeply personal meditation, Inadvertent is a cogent and accessible guide to the creative process of one of our most prolific and ingenious artists.

Argues that the key to the formation of an empire lies in a society's capacity for collective action, resulting from people banding together to confront a common enemy, and describing how the growth of empires leads to a growing dichotomy between rich and poor, increasing conflict instead of cooperation, and inevitable dissolution. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Air power for warfighting is a story that's been told many times. Air power for peacekeeping and UN enforcement is a story that desperately needs to be told. For the first-time, this volume covers the fascinating range of aerial peace functions. In rich detail it describes: aircraft transporting vital supplies to UN peacekeepers and massive amounts of humanitarian aid to war-affected populations; aircraft serving as the 'eyes in sky' to keep watch for the world organization; and combat aircraft enforcing the peace. Rich poignant case studies illuminate the past and present use of UN air power, pointing the way for the future. This book impressively fills the large gap in the current literature on peace operations, on the United Nations and on air power generally.

Despite poverty, violence, and despair, there are angels among us, walking the streets of New York City. For Panja Jurgens's thought-provoking photo essay, New Yorkers of every stripe strapped on a pair of pure white wings and, if only for a moment, transcended their own realities to imagine the possibilities of world peace. Some put their hopes into poetic words; others revealed their feelings through gestures and poses. Photographed in a wide variety of locations long before September 11, the images portray firefighters, nurses, artists, veterans, bikers, clerics, children, immigrants: a cross section of the peoples and cultures that make the city unique. Jurgens could not have picked a more appropriate, promise-filled place. A meditation by popular German rock star Udo Lindenberg introduces the 105 duotone photographs.

Measures how the world has been changed by the first human flight, examining military aviation after World War II, the safety of flight, the future of aviation, and centenary attempts to recreate the Wright brothers' first flights.