Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas
Lowe, Ben, 1997. 1340–1560. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
This book explores the growth and development of the pacifist movement in historical English foreign policy, examining how foundational concepts of ‘Just’ War came to be replaced by a Christian anxiety and a concern towards suffering. In doing so, these beliefs formed the ideological foundations of an English monarchy that was increasingly unwilling to pursue violent conflict as a means to political ends. With reference to intellectual movements such as Humanism or even religious affiliations like Protestantism, the author explores how major intellectual and theological shifts led to the creation of “peace ethics”, a pre-modern manifestation of pacifism.