Imagine: Reflections on Peace

This book explores the conditions and consequences of peace processes in Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Colombia. Leading photographers and writers of war returned to those countries where they first reported during conflict. Analysts, lawyers, negotiators and writers who lived through war and peace added their voices to the project. All together they examine what lessons can be learned from the peace that was brokered in these nations, how peace has endured over time, and in the hope that one hundred years after the failed peace accord of Versailles, future generations will understand how the failures and successes of the past can be used to build a peace that will endure in the future.

Since the end of the Cold War, a handful of nations have managed to move beyond what seemed like intractable civil wars to states of somewhat stable peace. Different conditions have allowed Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and Rwanda to transform themselves, and each society relies on its own set of principles and processes to ''feed'' the peace.
The Peace Project has been conceived as an exploration of how such nations have achieved peace and how they are maintaining it. The project looks in particular at the concepts of truth, reconciliation, justice, and forgiveness. It also examinesthe parts that civic society plays in making peace and how, once won, governments and politicians drive peace forward. It looks at gender, asking whether men and women make and maintain peace differently. So as to better understand these societies and to offer ideas on how peace might be fed elsewhere, the VII Foundation has asked writers and photojournalists, each familiar with the pervasive conflict in the countries they focus on, to return and re-examine the post-conflict arena.

Each photographer has a venerable body of work from the conflict period and has submitted historical images for the project. He or she produced original work from these regions today. For some of the photographers, this marks an emtional return to a story after decades away. For others, it is an opportunity to curate their life's work, as a barometer of change as peace has taken hold, come under threat, and taken hold again.
The distinguished writers the VII Foundation have chosen made their careers covering the respective region and have continued to follow developments. Their long-time personal understanding of the political and social forces at play, coupled with their enduring relationships with people in the country, give their essays special insight, as well as literary value.
Citizens who lived through the transition from war to peace will offer first-hand accounts, adding local voices and insights.
In addition to reportage, the book includes a series of essays on the core issues that accompany a country through the transition from war to peace. These essays frame our exploration and will include analyses by leading commentators from the fields of law, politics and government, negotiation, reconciliation, and social justice.