Book Review: Gillian Youngs (ed.), Digital World: Connectivity, Creativity and Rights
| Author | Peter Woodcock |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916674593 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsGeneral Politics |
Political Studies Review 15 (1)
Peace: A Very Short Introduction by Oliver
particularly scarce’ (p. 22). ‘Invention’ would
P Richmond. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
suggest conceptual emergence but ‘scarcity’
2014. 140pp., £7.99 (p/b), ISBN 9780199656004
would suggest a state of affairs. This conflation
of factual state and concept does not impair the
In Peace: A Very Short Introduction, Oliver
quality of the text, but what it does allow
Richmond gives a brief history of that ubiqui-
Richmond to do is to trace the idea of peace
tous but nebulous idea. Established at the out-
across implausibly vast time spans, and turn it
set is the general problem of defining peace
into something of a catch-all concept, thereby
and its present state. Is it to be understood in a
muddling his argument for the claim that
negative sense, as the mere absence of vio-
peace, historically, has been our most common
lence, meaning that highly unacceptable condi-
experience.
tions are to be termed ‘peaceful’? Or is it more
productive to take peace in a comprehensive
sense, as the ‘broad’ version – for example, the
Alexander Blanchard
peace established in Europe after centuries of
(Queen Mary University of London)
war – or a ‘multiple peace’, which entails the
© The Author(s) 2016
coexistence of differing and somewhat antago-
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916674592
nistic social and political systems?
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Richmond plays on the tension between
these different definitions as the primary way of
propelling the book’s narrative. Around the
Digital World: Connectivity, Creativity
transformation of this tension, he introduces a
and Rights by Gillian Youngs (ed.). Abingdon:
set of specific forms of peace, such as ‘victor’s
Routledge, 2013. 192pp., £80.00 (h/b), ISBN
peace’ or ‘civil peace’, and charts the evolution
9780415839082
of concepts and terminology associated with ...
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