Book Review: Peace Over War by Barbara G. Melamed

by Pallavi Braya

Barbara Melamed’s Peace over War gives you a jolt, similar to that first hit of caffeine in the morning when you take a sip and make it through the whole cup before realizing just how much its energized you. Through thirteen chapters, the book historicizes peace through Melamed’s life and demonstrates that peace is an active choice that one can make day in and day out, be it policymakers or the readers themselves. Peace is not passive; it is power, it is action, it is movement and, most importantly, it is progress.

Across country lines, through borders and geographical distance, Barbara Melamed creates kinship and synergy. The book provides a vocabulary to define the conflicts around us, and delineate normative terms such as moral injury and transgression by applying them to critical events we have all heard or read about. Zig-zagging through historical events, from the Cambodian War to the 9/11 attacks, Peace over War displays how a conflict germinates in public imagination, with deep seated invisible roots that one day appear to become a visible problem. Where did this conflict come from? How did it become what it is today? By historicizing several conflicts, the book alludes to how this might be done, where the problem really begins and how one can identify it for better outcomes in the future.

Peace over War invites the reader on a spiritual, and personal, journey that traces critical social and political moments that defined the century. Through events that Melamed herself has lived and breathed, it gives the reader a fine example of how the micro and macro levels are interconnected in conversations on peace. For example, in the chapter detailing the Vietnam War, the reader gets insight into how a series of seemingly small decisions fit together like a jigsaw to create a much larger picture. More importantly, the book asks you where and how you fit into the narrative of war and peace, and demands that you confront the politics of what you unconsciously support by not consciously dissenting. Choices are important, as Peace over War demonstrates to you, and when they do not appear to amount to anything, that is when they matter the most.

The instructional style of the book urges the reader to think – could this outcome have been more peaceful? Were there alternative ways to approach this problem? If yes, what were they? Strive to be better, because when your outcomes do not match your ideals, there is a problem, and as long as there is a problem, there is something left to be done to fix it. Peace over War overlays one of the harshest truths there is to acknowledge – that history repeats itself, war and violence recur – with a message of incredible hope. You have power, you have agency and as long as you channel that towards building collective will, there is a chance to change things. Peace can be born from violent acts, if one takes war personally and not as something divorced from themselves occurring in a distant battle ground. Get up, the book urges you, take a closer look at the contradictions that are brewing in their own backyard, look at how these conversations on conflict involve you, and fix the mess.

Peace over War identifies numerous stakeholders in the war system, each with different and complex needs. It describes how some of those needs may be addressed and provides alternative approaches to understand opposing views. Rather than painting a simplistic picture, Melamed identifies conflict as nuanced, as something that must be understood, but more than that, something which requires willing engagement from the parties involved and the larger community. Not engagement and will as separate entities, but specifically together; a desire, that may often be frustrating, on both sides to continually engage. This is particularly evident through the book’s coverage of a conflict in Hawaii over the Thirty Meter Telescope- what seems like a simplistic issue is in reality a deep-rooted contestation over fundamental values. How do you mediate these? When can you initiate a compromise? These are questions Peace over War helps you identify and then work towards decoding.

Peace over War is an insightful book that traces how the personal becomes political in the broader security discourse, and specifically in conversations on peace, which is often hard to find. By covering a wide landscape and historical events, Melamed demonstrates how to apply peace as an approach to life and beyond. Yes, peace is a thing of hope. But hope is not divorced from political action, rather it can create it. Violence begins new life; carnage breeds the possibility of regrowth, and if we do not find a way to contribute to that growth, whether it is on the global stage or in our homes, we will surely, but steadily, allow the seeds of discord to flourish. Peace is always possible, and it is up to each of us individually to choose peace over war.  

Dr. Barbara Melamed is one of the leading voices in peace and social justice advocacy, dating back to her work in civil rights with folk singer and peace advocate Pete Seeger. She worked at Montebello Camp for the Blind. In addition, she worked with families exposed to HIV. Thus, Pacific Transcend Media (2018) announced that she was among the Top 100 Peace and Social Justice Activists.

Dr. Melamed is currently Founder & Director of Behavior Medicine Associates, Clinical Affiliate Professor on the faculty at University of Hawaii, Psychology Department, and former Adjunct Professor, at John Burns School of Medicine Department of Complementary & Integrative Medicine. She also serves on the Board of Directors and is Advisory Chairperson of the Gandhi International Institute for Peace and the Association of Conflict Resolution. She helped organize the local Hawaii Association Alliance for Conflict Resolution. She was editor of the journal Health Psychology and assists regularly on journal reviews for international journals such as the Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development.