Douglas Hurd THE SEARCH FOR PEACE First Edition Signed
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Douglas Hurd THE SEARCH FOR PEACE First Edition Signed
First edition, first print hardback of THE SEARCH FOR PEACE: A Century of Peace Diplomacy, by Douglas Hurd and published by Little, Brown and Company, London, in 1997. Signed and dated by Hurd on the title page.The book is in very good condition (Clean grey boards with gilt lettering on spine), with minor wear to the dust jacket which is not price clipped (light creasing to the edges). Internally, the pages are clean and tight and there are no tears and no other inscriptions.
The Rt. Hon. Lord Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE enjoyed a distinguished career in government spanning sixteen years. He ran as Edward Heath's Political Secretary at 10 Downing Street from 1970 to 1974. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1984-8), Home Secretary (1985-9) and Foreign Secretary from 1989 to 1995 in Margaret Thatcher's government. Former diplomat, private secretary to Edward Heath (as Leader of the Opposition and as PM); MP 1974-97. Served Margaret Thatcher as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, as Home Secretary and as Foreign Secretary. Hurd is a writer of political thrillers including Scotch on the Rocks (1971, with Andrew Osmond), Truth Game (1972),A Vote To A Kill (1975), Palace of Enchantments (1985, with Stephen Lamport), The Shape of Ice (1998) and Image in the Water (2001), plus 10 Minutes to Turn the Devil, a collection of short stories. His non-fiction works include The Arrow War (1967), An End To Promises (1979), The Search for Peace (1997), Memoirs (2003) and Robert Peel, a Biography (2007). Choose your Weapons (2010).
The Search for Peace was made into a four-part BBC series on diplomacy, written and presented by the author.
"We live in a world of nation states which are both immortal and incompetent, political entities that act as a focus for the loyalty of the citizen but cannot by themselves meet those citizens' needs. Effective co-operation between states from the League of Nations to the United Nations has sought to redress this imbalance, but as the history of our own continent illustrates, a Europe of nation states has bred a Europe of endemic warfare. How could civil and world conflicts be brought to just conclusions in ways which reduced long-term international tension?
Such has been the problem facing international diplomacy for nearly two hundred years. Combining acute historical analysis with the unique insight of a former Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd traces the search for peace back to the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, when the imperial hegemony threatened by Napoleon alerted the rest of Europe into recognising that ritual reward and humiliation, and the re-drawing of frontiers, were no longer the sole priorities of peace negotiations.
Focusing his attention on four key events - the Congress of Vienna, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the Yalta settlement of 1945 and the collapse of Communism Douglas Hurd demonstrates how the diplomatic realism that kept Europe at peace for a century was destroyed by both American idealism at the end of the First World War and the accompanying rise of Nazism, Fascism and Marxism. Only by appreciating the lessons of the past, he writes, can we exploit the new opportunities and meet the new challenges presented by the tumultuous events of 1989, when the threat of nuclear war was replaced by the open wound of Bosnia. Civil war, with its undercurrents of political genocide and ethnic violence, is now the issue Western governments and international institutions must confront if the search for peace is to succeed.
The Search for Peace draws upon Douglas Hurd's own extensive experience, the ideas which have shaped policy-making asnd the role of diplomats from Metternich to Kissinger. It is a major contribution to our understanding of international politics."
'...all the insight and judgement you would expect from such a distinguished mind, and the virtue of being immensely readable' - John Major, SUNDAY TIMES 'Pick of the Year'
'The text is taut...wise and penetrating' Roy Jenkins, Sunday TELEGRAPH
8vo - over 7?" - 9?" tall. 266 pages. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
ISBN: 0 316 64037 9
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Douglas Hurd THE SEARCH FOR PEACE First Edition Signed
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