ABSTRACT
Peace movements are fluid and sometimes short-lived social phenomena with the broad participation of ordinary people. The history of peace movements is one of discontinuities and divisions. Peace churches have repudiated participation in war, believing that violence suppresses love, truth and freedom by breeding fear, hatred and prejudice. Influenced by the early 19th century liberalism, the first peace societies stressed that differences between states could be settled without recourse to war and granted significance to the role of enlightened public opinion and rational discussion of conflicting interests. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Fellowship of Reconciliation was given birth as a liberal pacifist group in 1914 by an ecumenical effort to unite and co-ordinate religious pacifists of all faiths. President Reagan launched the largest peacetime military build-up in US history. The peace movement called for the de-nuclearisation of military policy as well as demilitarisation of defence policies.
