David Cortright

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David Cortright
David Cortright - Professor Emeritus at the Keough School of Global Affairs.jpg
David Cortright - Professor Emeritus at the Keough School of Global Affairs
Academic work
Institutions University of Notre Dame
Notable works Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War
Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War
Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas

David Cortright is an American scholar and peace activist. He is a Vietnam veteran who is currently Professor Emeritus and special adviser for policy studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 22 books. Cortright has a long history of public advocacy for disarmament and the prevention of war.

Contents

Biography

Cortright is a 1968 graduate of the University of Notre Dame. In 1970 he received his M.A. from New York University, and completed his doctoral studies in 1975 at the Union Institute in residence at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. [1]

As a soldier during the Vietnam War, Cortright joined with fellow soldiers to speak out against the war as part of the GI peace movement. [2] He was 1 of 1,365 servicemen who signed an antiwar ad in the New York Times published on November 9, 1969 (see image below). [3]

In 1977, Cortright was named the executive director of The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE), which under his direction became the largest disarmament organization in the U.S. Cortright initiated the 1987 merger of SANE and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and served for a time as co-director of the merged organization. [4] In 2002 Cortright helped to found the Win Without War coalition in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In 2014 he joined with Tom Hayden and others from the anti-Vietnam War movement to demand that the Department of Defense change a "rose-colored portrayal" of the Vietnam War on the government agency's website. [5] Following the 2016 Colombian peace agreement referendum, he served as Director of the Kroc Institute's Peace Accords Matrix to support implementation of the 300-page agreement. [6]

Work

Cortright is a Professor Emeritus of the Practice at the KROC Institute for International Peace Studies and the University of Notre Dame. His areas of expertise include nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. He is the author or co-editor of 22 books. He has written widely on nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international diplomacy. He has provided research services to several foreign ministries, including those of Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands, and has advised agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. [7]

Books

He is the author or co-editor of 22 books:

See also

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References

  1. "David Cortright". 24 Aug 2023.
  2. "Podcast: I was part of a war that I came to see as unjust, immoral, illegal". 30 April 2019.
  3. Cortright, David (8 November 2019). "I Never Expected to Protest the Vietnam War While on Active Duty". New York Times. New York City, NY. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
  4. , Swarthmore College Peace Collection - SANE Records
  5. Katie Shepherd (26 July 2016). "Activists Call for Realistic Portrayal of Vietnam War on a Pentagon Website". The New York Times . Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  6. Beth Griffin (6 February 2018). "Church helps people in Colombia move from 'vengeance' to reconciliation". ncronline.org/. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  7. 1 2 "David Cortright". University of Notre Dame: Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  8. Hastings, Tom (10 June 2023). "A Peaceful Superpower". Journal of Peace Education. doi:10.1080/17400201.2023.2222965. S2CID   259418188.
  9. Cortright, David; Seyle, Conor; Wall, Kristen (2017). Governance for Peace. doi:10.1017/9781108235471. ISBN   9781108235471.