Peace Heroes in Twentieth-Century America

Over twenty years ago when he was running for President, John Kennedy published a book called Profiles in Courage. He was interested in conventional heroes, principled and dedicated, who devoted themselves to holding "the ship of State to its true course." Charles DeBenedetti's timely book is about equally principled heroes who were frequently at odds with the direction the American ship of State was taking at home and abroad. The people who gave shape to the American peace movement in the twentieth century were Jane Addams, Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, Albert Einstein, A. J. Muste, Norman Cousins, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daniel and Philip Berrigan. These dynamic and individualistic people are discussed in separate mini-biographies in this volume.