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I have hope because I am alive. I have hope because my existence shows the impossible can become possible. When people said racial segregation in America must end, those who supported segregation controlled the society, government, military, corporations, many universities, and most of the money. What did the advocates of desegregation have on their side? The truth. Contrary to widely believed myths, it was not true that African Americans were inferior to whites. It was not true that racial harmony was impossible.

When people said women should have equal rights with men, those who opposed women’s rights controlled the society, government, military, corporations, many universities, and most of the money. What did the advocates of gender equality have on their side? The truth. Contrary to widely believed myths, it was not true that women were intellectually inferior to men. It was not true that women were less than human.

Today ending war is necessary for the survival of humanity, yet those who perpetuate war control the society, government, military, corporations, many universities, and most of the money. What do we have on our side? The truth. Contrary to widely believed myths, it is not true that human beings are naturally violent. It is not true that war is inevitable. It is not true that war protects our way of life and makes us safe. This book provides the evidence and reasoning necessary to support these claims, and it outlines a path away from war that shows how we can solve our world’s most serious problems.

Historical perspective is one ingredient in the recipe for hope, because when people lack perspective they also lack hope. To see how much humanity can achieve, we must recognize how far we have come. Five hundred years ago ideals such as democracy, the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and women’s and civil rights virtually did not exist. And how many democratic countries were there two hundred years ago? By 1810 Napoleon had overthrown the democratic government in France, and the United States was not a democracy for African Americans, women, and even many white people, since owning land was a common requirement for voting. But because people in the past had hope and took action, democracies now exist in many parts of the world, and America has become a place where I can write these words today.

I grew up in Alabama, and although my father was half white, half black and my mother was Korean, I had the opportunity to graduate from West Point because our ancestors who waged peace embodied the highest ideals I learned in the U.S. Army, such as its Warrior Ethos: “I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade.”

Whether their mission was ending racial segregation or achieving women’s rights, those who struggled for a better world placed the mission first, never accepted defeat, and never quit. When the ship of justice allowed only a few people on board and seemed to disappear over the horizon, they refused to leave behind their comrades, their brothers and sisters, their fellow human beings. This book will explain why the ongoing struggles for justice, peace, women’s rights, and racial equality are stagnating and even losing ground in many parts of the world, and what we can do to turn the tide. This book will show how far humanity has come, how much further we can go, and how we can get there.

For hundreds of years my African ancestors were slaves, and my father was drafted into a segregated army. Progress happened not only because people had hope and took action, but because truth is more powerful than lies. Injustice is built on lies, and every lie has a fatal flaw—it isn’t true.

State-sanctioned slavery existed on a global scale for thousands of years, but this unjust system could not have existed without the help of lies and myths. For example, many slave owners believed it was in the nature of certain people to live as slaves. They even believed most slaves were happy being slaves. State-sanctioned slavery was supported by the myth that slaves, like domesticated animals, needed masters. The myth also claimed that a slave owner could be a kind and gentle master of his slaves just as a shepherd could be a kind and gentle master of his sheep—and slaves wouldn’t know what to do with freedom if you gave it to them.

Today if I said, “It’s not in the nature of some races to be slaves. Human beings have an innate yearning for freedom, and to enslave a group of people harsh techniques must be used to break their will and suppress their human nature,” most of us would agree it is a self-evident statement that makes common sense. But this was not common sense several hundred years ago. By the eighteenth century, state-sanctioned slavery had existed since the beginning of recorded history and was an integral part of the global economy. Thomas Clarkson and other abolitionists believed all human beings should have the gift of freedom and dedicated their lives to ending slavery. If you think the world looks hopeless today, imagine how it must have looked from Clarkson’s perspective, a man ridiculed for thinking slavery was wrong.

Hope allows us to see not only how the world is but also how it can be. Because Americans had hope, in 1848 they organized the first convention for women’s rights in Seneca Falls, New York. Approximately three hundred people showed up. They wrote a document called the Declaration of Sentiments, stating women should have the right to vote, the right to own property, and other freedoms often taken for granted today. Many of the women at the convention thought having the right to vote was too radical, but social activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass, the only African American at the convention, spoke in its favor. Despite this, only one hundred signed the document. If you think the world looks hopeless today, imagine how it must have looked from the perspective of Stanton and Douglass. They couldn’t even get the women’s rights movement to fully support women’s right to vote.

Without people like Stanton and Douglass, nothing would ever change for the better. The information in this book will unlock the mystery of hope that made them so powerful. It will also show why writer and human rights activist Victor Hugo was correct when he said: “Nothing can withstand the force of an idea whose time has come.”2

During the seventeenth century, Galileo Galilei offered scientific evidence showing the earth revolved around the sun. Threatened by his new evidence, the Roman Catholic Church gave him the choice of recanting his ideas or facing execution. Even if he recanted, the church would ban Galileo’s books and put him under house arrest for the rest of his life. At this time the church was a superpower that controlled governments, societies, militaries, religious beliefs, educational systems, and much of the wealth worldwide. If you think the world looks hopeless today, imagine how it must have looked to Galileo, who was almost killed for saying the earth revolved around the sun and spent the rest of his life on house arrest after recanting his ideas.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for its treatment of Galileo and other mistakes it had made. His apology reveals a lot about the power of truth to overcome deception.

Truth is eternal, but the lies that sustain oppression and injustice have a lifespan. Since the birth of humanity it has always been true that women are not less than human and no race was designed for slavery, but lies suppress these truths. Unlike truth, which can be concealed but never destroyed, a lie can eventually grow old and die. However, unlike the struggles for racial equality, women’s rights, intellectual freedom, and the abolition of slavery—primarily moral issues—ending war is a matter of survival. The great question of our era is: What will die first—the myths that support war or the human species? Unlike the movements that furthered racial and gender equality around the world, the struggle to end war is a race against time in which our survival is at stake. During the twentieth century, a cold war between the Soviet Union and United States held the world hostage. Today, if we fail to take action we could face far more dangerous situations: a nuclear arms race might escalate not between two superpowers but among many countries, or nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists.

This book offers new solutions to help us win this race. To win we must get to the root of the problem by unlocking the mysteries of human nature that have eluded us for far too long. Peaceful Revolution will show how terrorism, injustice, oppression, tyranny, racism, sexism, violence, war, genocide, and our destruction of the environment are caused by the same underlying problems. They are features of the same face. Instead of treating surface symptoms we will discuss how to cure the underlying ways of thinking that cause conflicts around the world, violence in our societies, turmoil in our homes, and suffering in our hearts.

West Point, the military, and war have given me a window into the mysteries of human nature. West Point and the military also gave me the training necessary to work for a safer and more peaceful world. To show why and how this happened, Peaceful Revolution journeys deeper than my previous two books, Will War Ever End? and The End of War, and its content is much broader. In Peaceful Revolution I will revisit some of the ideas and stories in those first two books, to expand our understanding in new directions. I will also unlock the mysteries of hope, empathy, and the other muscles of our humanity that hold the secrets to our salvation. This is important, because in the twenty-first century our survival depends on our ability to understand and embrace our humanity. This book, by clarifying what it means to be human, is a next step on the road to peace that will help us achieve our highest potential as a global family.

I have been working on Peaceful Revolution for ten years. More personal than my previous two books, it journeys into our shared human struggle for meaning. It examines the most painful moments of my life—the times when I lost hope and peace seemed like an impossible dream. It also explains why I nearly committed suicide and why I kept choosing the path of life. These pages explore dark personal experiences and even darker content. But ideas that shine with real hope and empowerment can only rise from the deepest shadows. To unlock the mystery of hope we must also explore our doubts, hopelessness, and despair. To understand peace we must journey into the foreboding source of violence. Peaceful Revolution analyzes our destructive behavior in a way that sees through the illusions, stereotypes, and lies—the myths that confuse us and prevent us from solving our problems. We will return from this voyage with new strength, hope, direction, and solutions.

In 1962, two years before his death, General MacArthur gave his final address to the cadets at West Point. He said: “This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’”3

World peace is necessary in an interconnected global society where technology has given us the means to destroy ourselves. Like General MacArthur, most of us have seen our attitudes toward war and peace change over time. Also, like him, most of us want to believe world peace and human survival are possible, yet we have doubts. Although he had significant doubts about the attainment of world peace, this book reveals what humanity has learned about the possibility of peace since General MacArthur expressed his uncertainties fifty years ago.

We are living during an information revolution that has dramatically changed our understanding in many ways. We discovered more about physics during the twentieth century than every previous century of recorded history combined. We also made more advances in medical technology than all the preceding centuries put together. In 1926, General George Patton wrote: “Despite the years of thought and oceans of ink which have been devoted to the elucidation of war, its secrets still remain shrouded in mystery.”4

Just as humanity’s understanding of physics and medical technology grew more during the twentieth century than the rest of recorded history put together, this book will show that we have learned more about war’s true nature since General Patton wrote those words in 1926 than all of the centuries that preceded him. We are living during an exciting time when the deepest secrets of war, which General Patton believed to be shrouded in mystery, are finally being unlocked. One of these secrets is how to end war.

This book explains why we are living in one of the most hopeful eras in human history and why peace is within our grasp. It also shows how I arrived at these conclusions while being a very skeptical person. A degree of skepticism can be healthy because it prevents us from being fooled by quick fixes and shallow solutions that don’t address the root causes of our problems. Skepticism should not be confused with cynicism, however; skepticism is the act of questioning while cynicism is the triumph of hopelessness.

We can talk about how tragic war is, but unless we question its underlying assumptions and challenge its prevailing myths, war will continue. A peaceful revolution that dispels the myths of war while lifting our perception of humanity to new heights is crucial. A peaceful revolution that shows what all people can do to create the future needed for humanity’s survival is necessary now more than ever. That revolution is alive in these pages, but to truly succeed it must also become alive in you. For the sake of humanity and our planet, I hope this book will help ignite a peaceful revolution within you.

Paul K. Chappell

July 14, 2010

Santa Barbara, CA