ABSTRACT
This book has concerned itself mainly with the phenomenon of conflict as a social process that operates in many different contexts. The process clearly can be studied simply as a phenomenon of nature without any evaluation or practical conclusions. It must be confessed, however, that this study was not motivated merely by idle curiosity, even though curiosity about the nature and form of phenomena must be an important motive in any scientific and theoretical inquiry. We live in a day in which conflict, especially international conflict, threatens to get out of hand and destroy us. The theory of conflict, therefore, has practical implications, even implications about survival. We cannot leave the subject, therefore, without examining these practical implications, even though these inevitably involve us in ethical judgments.
