War Surgeon, Seeker of Peace

Preface by Jean-Pierre Raffarin

Drawing on first-hand experience in theatres of operations where he operated on a thousand war wounded, Jean MAYER then conducts a broad, didactic geopolitical analysis, offering several keys to understanding the War and Peace diptych. As Jean-Pierre Raffarin writes in his preface, "The originality of his work lies in having been able to escape from circumstance and take the paths of thought, philosophy and polemology. The book you hold in your hands brings together a body of thought capable of striking a very hard blow against the thinking of war."

From Philippeville in 1954 to Gaza in 2024, events have shaped a body of thought. To seriously contemplate peace, one must first thoroughly understand the mechanisms of armed conflict. Drawing on the analysis of several wars, he goes back deep in time, seeking the moments when peace could have been possible but when history went off the rails; he analyses the types of war, nuclear deterrence, the highly contested notion of just war, and the psychology of war. He finally proposes solutions for peace drawing on Immanuel Kant's perpetual peace, Galtung's positive peace, diplomacy, evangelical peace, seeking thereby to find grounds for hope carried by a spiritual quest.