ABSTRACT Through a brief analysis of the reflections of some prestigious contemporary philosophers such as Norberto Bobbio, Mulford Quickert Sibley, Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann, Michael Allen Fox, David Cortright, Larry May, John Rawls, Eric Reitan, Johan Galtung and David Boersema, this essay reconstructs Russell's pacifist commitment during the First World War. This dramatic event represented a real watershed for his multifaceted and ingenious personality, leading to his new political and civil commitment. Through a series of articles and lectures, he fought against (...) militarism, was in favour of a world government and underlined the psychological causes of war. All this coincided in part with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the ideas of which he initially shared; at the time of the Leeds Convention, he believed that the March revolution would involve a complete political and economic change at the international level by removing the causes of war. It was not by chance that he decided to join the Independent Labour Party, a choice that marked his separation from the Liberals. Although the latter explored in depth different forms of pacifism, Russell implicitly recalled the formula ‘Pax enim non belli privatio’ by Baruch Spinoza, supporting a fundamental paradigm of the modern political theory. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) and Albert Einstein (1879-1955) had very different cultural backgrounds and personalities. At the same time, they were ideally united in their tenacious battle for peac...

Bertrand Russell: The Colours of Pacifism analyzes the tenacious commitment of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary intellectuals to the cause of civilization, progress, and human rights. Through his active and pragmatic pacifism, Russell sought to confront the problems stemming from the unstable and dramatic political conditions of his age: the beginning of the Great War, the establishment of the League of Nations, the rise of totalitarian regimes, the outbreak of the Second World War, the dawn of the Atomic (...) Age, the escalation of the Cold War, the weakness of the United Nations, and the need for world government. His reflections on the subject of peace, which constitute the main focus of this book, led Russell into dialogue with some of the greatest figures of his time, including Romain Rolland, Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson, Leon Trotsky, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Nikita Khrushchev, and J. F. Kennedy. Shining new light on a lifelong preoccupation in Russell's work and thinking, The Colours of Pacifism is a landmark study that will appeal to students, scholars and anyone curious about the philosopher's engagement with the world around him. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Jean Monnet was the inventor of the community method; by placing economic integration before the political one, he reversed the criteria of unification that had characterised the development of nation-states in the Old Continent. He was never a government or party leader; despite this, he engaged on an equal footing with the most prestigious statesmen of the twentieth century, influencing their choices: from Viviani in 1914 to Giscard d’Estaing in 1975, passing through Schuman, Spaak, De Gasperi, Adenauer and Kennedy. (...) Monnet favoured the creation of supranational community institutions. Through his foresight he was able to combine ideas and pragmatism and in this way he taught a whole generation of European leaders to debate issues of common interest, thus overcoming national selfishness; from the Schuman Declaration of which he was the main ‘inspirer’ (as he was sarcastically called by Charles de Gaulle) which led to the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) to the first election by universal suffrage of the European Parliament (1979), passing through the failure of the European Defence Community (1954), the Rome Treaties establishing the European Economic Community and Euratom (1957) and his tireless commitment inside the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Amongst the Italian exiles who arrived at the Canton of Ticino following repression perpetrated by the Di Rudinì and Pelloux administrations – after the popular uprisings of 1898 – are Enrico Bignami, Giuseppe Rensi and Arcangelo Ghisleri, who, in Lugano, created a sort of secular symposium for fostering spiritual values. This gave birth to Coenobium, the ‘international journal of independent studies’, which remained in operation between 1906 and 1919. This periodical distinguished itself due to the diversity of the issues (...) addressed: from science to law, from history to philosophy, from literature to spiritualism, philosophy and psychology. With the beginning of the First World War, however, Coenobium’s focus was on the spiral of violence triggered by the war; hence a series of denunciations entrusted to the column ‘War to war!’, which marked a dramatic change in the editorial policy of the magazine edited by Bignami, who was determined to turn it into a strong instrument of pacifist propaganda. Several prestigious figures in Europe’s cultural and political milieus participated in this venture, notably Norman Angell, Romain Rolland, Angelo Crespi, Raffaele Ottolenghi, Claudio Treves, Filippo Turati, Henri La Fontaine, Nicholas Murray Butler and Enrico Bignami. (shrink)