425 BCE Aristophanes: His trilogy of plays called for the end of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) The Acharnians

421 BCE Aristophanes Peace

410 BCE Aristophanes Lysistrata: In this play, women refuse their husbands sex in order to end war.

ca 400 BCE Sun Tzu The Art of War.

350 BCE Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics Book X: "for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace."
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.10.x.html

27 BCE - 180 CE Pax Romana: Ironically, the purpose of empire is often peace.

Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God."

Matthew 5:39: "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

4th century CE Gregory of Nyssa "On Perfection": "By understanding Christ as peace we will manifest the true name of Christian [. . .]."

5th century CE Augustine develops his theory of "just war." Robert L. Holmes in Christianity Today provides an overview of Augustine's theory. Alex Moseley, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, provides an overview of how this theory has been applied.

Medieval Anglo-Saxon women were given in marriage to make peace ("peaceweavers"). For a brief discussion of this see Kari Vargas.

13th century CE Franciscans, followers of St. Francis of Assisi

13th century CE Thomas Aquinas "Of War" in The Summa Theologica uses Augustine to argue that war is justified if the ruler declares it, if the cause is just, and if the aggressors have the right intention.

ca. 1304-1308 Dante The Banquet: "Consequently, in order to do away with these wars and their causes, it is necessary that the whole earth, and all that is given to the human race to possess, should be a Monarchy."

ca 1410 Christine de Pizan The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry

1515 Desiderius Erasmus "Dulce Bellum Inexpertis" ("War is Sweet to the Inexperienced")

1520 Nicolo Machiavelli The Seven Books on the Art of War

1525 Mennonites

1530 Nicolo Machiavelli The Prince: "A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank."

1542 Bartolome de Las Casas "Declaration of the Rights of the Indians" convinced Charles V and eventually the Catholic church to protect rights of indigenous people in the Americas. "War against unbelievers for the purpose of subjecting them to Christian control, and to compel them by this means to accept the Christian faith and religion, or to remove obstacles to the end that may exist, is reckless, unjust, perverse, and tyrannical" (qtd. in in Chatfield and Ilukhina).

1625 Hugo Grotius The Law of War and Peace discusses just and unjust wars.

1651 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan: The commonwealth, ruled by an absolute monarch, saves people from a state of nature characterized by endless war.

1660 Quakers

1693 William Penn, a Quaker, "An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe By the Establishment of an European Diet, Parliament, or Estates." Overview.

1832 Carl Von Clausewitz On War: "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means."

1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Manifesto of the Communist Party argues that the rise of the proletariat will bring an end to international antagonism.

1849 Henry David Thoreau "Resistance to Civil Government" or "Civil Disobedience" refuses to pay taxes that support state-sanctioned violence.

1851 Victor Hugo calls for a "United States of Europe" at the International Peace Congress.

1860s Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq Battle Studies

1864 Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded on the Field of Battle (Red Cross Convention; Geneva Convention)

1867 International League for Peace and Freedom founded

1880 Alfred Thayer Mahan The Influence of Seapower upon History, 1660-1783. Overview.

1889 Bertha von Suttner Die Waffen Neider (Lay Down Your Arms!)

1899 Peace Conference at The Hague. Documents available through the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.

1901 First Nobel Peace Prize awarded. Visit the official site for Laureates and full text of their Nobel Lectures, including Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, the Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel, Mother Theresa, Henry Kissinger, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

1904 Lucia Ames Mead A Primer of the Peace Movement presented for the American Peace Society at the World's Fair

1906 Bertha von Suttner "The Evolution of the Peace Movement" Nobel Peace Price Acceptance Speech

1906 William James "The Moral Equivalent of War"

1914-19 World War I. World War I: Trenches on the Web. First World War.com.  The World War I Document Archive.

1915 Women's International League for Peace and Freedom founded

1917 Jane Addams "Pacifism and Patriotism in War Time" delivered to the City Club of Chicago

1917 Bolshevik Revolution

1918 Randolph Bourne "War is the Health of the State": "The moment war is declared, however, the mass of the people, through some spiritual alchemy, become convinced that they have willed and executed the deed themselves."

1918 Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Background and summary. Full text.

1919 International Labor Organization founded: Constitution Preamble: " Whereas universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice."

1920 League of Nations formed to facilitate peace through diplomacy.

1920s Mohandas Gandhi's theories of nonviolent resistance. Ronald Duncan The Selected Writings of Mahatma Gandhi

1921 War Resisters' International founded

1921 Guilio Douhet The Command of the Air. Overview.

1922 Jane Addams Peace and Bread in Times of War

1927 T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

1928 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating Gas, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare

1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact "the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy"

1931-32 Einstein-Freud correspondence regarding violence

1933 Simone Weil "Reflections on War." About Weil.

1933 Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth regarding the World War I "lost generation"

1937 Maria Montessori "Educate for Peace." Excerpts. American Montessori Society "Holistic Peace Education" and Peace Seed Connection

1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's speeches regarding appeasing Hitler

1939-45 World War II

1940 Virginia Woolf "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid"

1941 A. J. Muste "The World Task of Pacifism." Background and excerpts.

1942 The White Rose, German resistance to the war

1944 Vera Brittain Seeds of Chaos arguing against Allied saturation bombing of Germany

1945 United Nations formed

1945 The Franck Report: "In the past, science has often been able to provide adequate protection against new weapons it has given into the hands of an aggressor, but it cannot promise such efficient protection against the destructive use of nuclear power."

1945 Norman Cousins "Modern Man Is Obsolete" editorial in Saturday Review. "The Quest for Peace" 1984 interview with Harry Kreisler regarding the editorial.

1945 Bertrand Russell "The Bomb and Civilization"

1949 Geneva Convention (III) Relative to Treatment of Prisoners of War

1957 US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles "Dynamic Peace" to the AP

1964 Peace History Society founded

1967 Leonard C. Lewin's satiric Report from Iron Mountain published

1981 United Nations International Day of Peace established September 21
 

More Military Theory

"Military Theory and Study--The Classics." The War Scholar.
 
Other Peace Organizations
(This list is a sample; the author of this page does not endorse them.)