#67 With David Cortright, leading scholar on war, peace, and nonviolent resistance: "we have brought about historic change".

#67 With David Cortright, leading scholar on war, peace, and nonviolent resistance: "we have brought about historic change".

From The Nonviolent Jesus by Fr. John Dear

April 13, 2026 · 43 min · Season 2 · Episode 67

About this episode

Fr. John Dear interviews David Cortright about his work on war, peace, and nonviolent resistance.

Today I speak with my friend Prof. David Cortright, author and a leading scholar on war, peace and nonviolent resistance. He is the former executive director of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy which under his leadership in the 1980s grew from 4,000 to 150,000 members and became the largest disarmament organization in the U.S. He also co-founded Win Without War in 2002. He is a visiting scholar at Cornell University’s Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and professor emeritus at Notre Dame. David is the author, co-author or co-editor of 23 books, including Protest and Policy in the Iraq, the Nuclear Freeze and Vietnam Peace Movements; Civil Society, Peace and Power; Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for a New Political Age ; and Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas . He has written widely about nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and sanctions, and provided research services to the foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. He has served as consultant or advisor to the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission, the International Peace Academy, the MacArthur Foundation and Catholic Relief Services. He…

People in this episode

Host: Fr. John Dear

Guest: David Cortright

Topics covered

  • war
  • peace
  • nonviolent resistance
  • nuclear disarmament
  • social change
  • U.S.-Israeli relations

Keywords

  • nonviolence
  • disarmament
  • social change
  • military aid
  • Iran
  • Vietnam
  • peace movements

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: SANE, Win Without War, Cornell University, Notre Dame, United Nations, Carnegie Commission, International Peace Academy, MacArthur Foundation, Catholic Relief Services

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