The Search for Peace in Europe, 1500 -1914

Abstract

This chapter examines the history of peace in Europe beginning with an early sixteenth-century call to religious freedom that culminated in the late nineteenth century with widespread peace movements. It investigates how traditional nation-state methods to resolve war through treaty and diplomacy conflicted with popular notions of peace, leading to protests of the marginalized in their efforts to transcend negative peace and counter militarism. Within each era, traditional centers of authority were challenged by historically ignored voices in social movements protesting for a new relationship within societal and political constituencies. This contribution highlights how peace worked at the intersections and fissures during the great upheavals of the Reformations, Age of Enlightenment, and the Age of Imperialism.