ABSTRACT
To attempt any sort of historical survey of war and peace is, in effect, to tackle the whole of recorded history. The first is the historical concept of a "peace movement", the view that there has been throughout history a conflict between "peaceful" and "warlike" elements in society, and that the contemporary peace movement is the heir to the continuous and persistent opposition to war. The second is that women have been invariably, or even generally, the bearers and transmitters of this tradition of peace, with men as the instigators of conflict, the aggressive elements within human culture. Many supporters of the peace movement would not condemn national liberation movements which initiate armed risings against colonial or neo-colonial governments, and many more would maintain that the last war had to be fought, once the attempts to restrain German aggression and expansion by diplomatic means had failed.
