Historian to Tell “How Peace Activists Saved the World”

7/27/05

Contact: Greg Mello or Claire Long, 505-265-1200

Albuquerque , NM – On Saturday, July 30, at 4:30 pm, Dr. Lawrence Wittner will speak on “How Peace Activists Saved the World” at the UNM School of Law, Room 2405. His lecture will detail the worldwide history of the popular movement against nuclear weapons and tell how activists and intellectuals played a key role in preventing nuclear Armageddon.

This lecture will be open to the general public at no charge.

This event is part of three-day authoritative seminar on the legal status of nuclear weapons and the history of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, as well as a review of the civil society response over the past 60 years. For more information: www.lasg.org/current/press/2005-07-26-Remembering.htm

Dr. Lawrence Wittner attended Columbia College, the University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in History in 1967.  Since then he has taught at Hampton Institute, at Vassar College, at Japanese universities (under the Fulbright program), and at the State University of New York/Albany, where he is currently Professor of History.  A former president of the Council on Peace Research in History (now the Peace History Society), he has written extensively on the history of peace movements and on the history of United States foreign policy. 

His books include Rebels Against War (1969, rev. ed. 1984), Cold War America (1974, rev. ed. 1978), and American Intervention in Greece (1982). His most extensive project has been a scholarly trilogy entitled The Struggle Against the Bomb, a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement. He has also edited three other books and written more than 130 articles and book reviews.

A longtime participant in the peace, civil rights, and labor movements, Lawrence Wittner also performs (instrumentally and vocally) with the Solidarity Singers at peace and social justice gatherings.

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