Towards an Enduring Peace: A Symposium of Peace Proposals and Programs 1914-1916

In the bloodiest year of the Great War, some of the era's sharpest minds gathered to ask a question that haunts us still: how do nations stop killing each other? This compilation of essays and proposals, written between 1914 and 1916, captures a remarkable moment when the architects of the old world dared to imagine a different one. The contributors dissecting nationalism, questioning imperialism, and tracing war's economic roots understood that victory on the battlefield meant nothing if the peace that followed looked identical to the conflicts that came before. Franklin H. Giddings introduces the collection by arguing that the war has exposed the bankruptcy of naive idealism about world peace and demands harder, more practical thinking about what actually prevents conflict. Here you will find early warnings about economic exploitation of weaker states and critiques of a diplomacy built on balance-of-power illusions rather than genuine cooperation. For anyone interested in the intellectual history of peace movements or the origins of modern internationalism, this document preserves the desperate, necessary work of thinkers writing while the shells still fell.