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Book Club Session #2 | Abolishing War
- When: Saturday, December 14, 2024
- Time: 12:00 -1:30 pm Eastern Time
- Where: Zoom | Cost: FREE and open to the public
Join us for the second session in CGS’s World Citizen Book Club to discuss Dr. Winston Langley’s book, Abolishing War. Is it possible to abolish war? This is the fundamental question animating Winston Langley’s new book. And, though many will disagree, it is a question to which the author is persuaded the answer is yes. Far from being utopian ideals, Langley argues, international security and peace are attainable, as are their necessary corollaries: protection of the environment, conservation of natural resources, and fair enforcement of all human rights. To that end, he proposes a radically altered United Nations—one that will afford the effective system of global governance that we all desire.
Winston Langley is Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science and International Relations, and Senior Fellow, McCormack Graduate School for Policy and Global Studies, at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has taught for over 40 years and served as Provost of the university from 2008 to 2017.
The principal focus of his research and writing has been in the area of international relations dealing with models of global order, with strong emphasis on human rights and criticism of the present a-moral system, which is based on sovereign nation-states. He sees this system as the primary source of international violence, including war, and the unending cause of human rights abuse. Women and children have been an area of his human rights research and writing, his book (with Vivian Fox), on Women’s Rights in the United States, won Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award on human rights in North America. He has always had a deep interest in the role of images in human behavior, and for years taught a course on images of world politics through film and literature. His two latest books are War Between U.S. and China and While the US Sleeps.
He is a world federalist—one who thinks a world federation should be formed and, with it, the abolition of war should be effected. He has hobbies in architecture, music, and poetry, and his love of the latter two brought him in contact with the music and poetry of Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh. He thinks Nazrul is the greatest human rights poet of this or any other century.
For more information on current CGS World Citizen Book Club Sessions visit our CGS Book Club page.
