Abstract:

If, as Edward Hallett Carr contends, “The function of history is to promote a profounder understanding of both past and present through the interrelation between them” (Carr 1961, 86), then Mona L. Siegel’s Peace on our Terms provides much needed historical context for the global Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and women’s continued exclusion from peace processes and political institutions. WPS, an agenda contending that sustainable peace, global stability and domestic prosperity depend on women’s participation and leadership in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peace negotiations, and post-conflict reconstruction, disappointingly has not yet manifested into actual change by global leadership. As recently as October 2019, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UN Women, jointly lamented UN Member States’ poor progress on advancing WPS (UN News 2019). However, Siegel offers hope. Peace on Our Terms goes far beyond its intended purpose of being a work of global history and provides valuable lessons learned from feminists of the past that remain applicable for advancing WPS today. Peace on Our Terms is a ‘must’ for anyone interested in WPS, women’s peace history, feminist historical scholarship, or women and social movements.