Throughout history, monuments have been an important part of the artistic and cultural landscape in virtually all societies the world over.
Every monument contains a message from a previous age -- a message which the monument's creators invested time, money, and effort to preserve in physical form for the attention and edification of future generations. Yet individual monuments are too often under appreciated. And the common theme of scattered monuments is rarely if ever recognized.
Peace monuments, as a group, are overwhelmed by the vastly superior number of war monuments. They also suffer from their heterogeneity since "peace" means different things to different people and since its meaning changes from time to time.
This is the first book about peace monuments worldwide. It brings together images of 386 peace monuments from all continents (including Antarctica!) and all eras back to the Greeks and Romans. Arranged strictly in chronological order, these pages reveal the beauty, the variety, and the meanings of peace monuments more completely than ever before.
Even a casual perusal of the following pages reveals that "peace" is a universal theme revered at all times and in all parts of the world. Peace monuments are sometimes constructed to celebrate the end of war and the expectation of prosperity, sometimes constructed to express human aspirations such as tolerance and reconciliation, and sometimes constructed to crown such achievements as the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, defeat of tyrannical and murderous regimes, declaration of human rights, respect for conscientious objectors, end of apartheid, non-use of nuclear weapons, racial integration, recognition of international interdependence, reconciliation of divided nations, and struggle for gender equality.
In an ever changing world, monuments are one of the few things about which the expression "set in stone" is often literally true. Thus their fascination. Every monument is a time-capsule from the past. Sometimes a monument's message is obvious. Frequently, however, a monument's symbols and iconography are a little dated and require some thought before the intention of long-dead monument makers can be discerned.
A few monuments are "unintentional." This happens when a physical structure which was not originally constructed to be a monument becomes "monumental" virtually over-night due to some unforeseen event. Unintentional monuments are now too large, too important, or too beautiful to be destroyed (at least in the opinion of some), e.g. the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Andrew Carnegie's birthplace in Scotland, and the "Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall" (now called the Atomic Bomb Dome).
But most monuments are "intentional" and were designed by their creators to be eye-catching and beautiful. That is why the following pages are a feast for the eyes. Peruse the following pages quickly or slowly. Either way, we believe that you will marvel at the beauty, creative genius, and meaning of the legacy which the constructors of peace monuments have bestowed on us, their heirs.
All monuments have stories to tell -- even monuments whose causes are no longer in the forefront of our thinking. But do not assume that all monuments are out-dated. More peace monuments are being constructed today than ever before. In fact we live in a golden age of peace monument construction. This creates yet another reason to study the past -- so we can know better how to build our own peace monuments.
Peace monuments teach us about the sacrifices and aspirations of our forebears -- and remind us of the on-going tasks which are necessary for us to achieve and preserve peace and justice in our own day and age.
What achievements do we want to memorialize? What physical signals do we want to send to future generations?
Perhaps these pages will stir your imagination to answer these eternal questions.
Brit Museum, London
Munich, Germany
Rome, Italy
Friendship Bridge
Rotterdam, Netherlands
"Peace & Justice Embracing"
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Verviers, Belgium
City Hall, Geneva, Switzerland
Arbol de la Paz/Tree of Peace
Chile/Argentina
Yalu River
Prace, Czech Republic
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Amsterdam Park, Toronto, ON
Norway/Sweden
George Town, Cayman Islands
Wellington, New Zealand
Zanzibar, Tanzania
Berlin, Nazi Germany
Madrid, Spain
Tg-Jiu, Gorj, Romania
Mount of Beatitudes, Israel
New Delhi (India)
Miyazaki, Imperial Japan
Gellert Hill, Budapest, Hungary
Warsaw (Poland)
Stephansdom, Vienna, Austria
Ankara, Turkey
Zalongo, Greece
Pole of Inaccessibility, Antarctica
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Bello Monte,Caracas, Venezuela
Eisenhüttenstadt, East Germany
Yerevan, Armenia
Azadi Square, Tehran, Iran
Medellín, Columbia
Bagac, Philippines
Cuidad Colon, Costa Rica
Ndola, Zambia
Kiev, Ukraine
ABC Highway, Barbados
Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Costa Rica/Panama 
