Peace: 50 Years of Protest [Hardcover]

Barry Miles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2008

"An explanation of how the peace symbol-that upside-down V with a vertical column running through the middle, all surrounded by a circle-came to be."
-The Washington Post

The peace sign is probably the most commonly used symbol of protest in the world. Instantly recognizable as the universal sign for peace, in 2008 it turned 50 years old. With accounts from around the world, this book tells the story of the enduring power of the line drawing that began life as the official sign for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Tracing the roots of Gerald Holtom's design, it details the many ways the peace sign has been put to use, including politics, fashion, pop, film and marketing.
Contents include:

• 1957-1960 Ban The Bomb - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is formed
• 1960-1975 Stop The War - In the U.S. the Hippies adopt the symbol
• 1970-1980 Sign Of The Times - Other uses of the sign
• 1965-2005 Wear It Well - Use in fashion, music, design
• 1980-Present Anti-Nuclear Families - How it's still in use
• Happy Birthday Peace - Original birthday cards from numerous famous contributors

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—With more than 250 photos and illustrations and in clear, lively prose, Miles portrays the development of the peace symbol from its modest beginning to its representation of an era of widespread protest and cultural revolution. On April 8, 1958, a small group of disarmament protesters marched from London to Aldermaston, the site of Britain's top-secret nuclear weapons factory. A few days before, someone decided it would be a good idea to have a symbol to put on their placards. One of the marchers, a textile designer named Gerald Holtom, volunteered to see what he could come up with. He decided on a combination of the naval semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D" (for nuclear disarmament) encased in a circle. Despite the initial apathy with which it was met, the simple and unique design has endured to become one of the most universally recognized symbols in the world. The author explores its life as an icon of chic style and its adaptation by Hollywood, the music industry, the art world, certain political campaigns, and environmental groups. He provides background leading up to the birth of the antinuclear weapons movement, as well as ample evidence of the peace sign's extensive, multifaceted use worldwide. Among the many stunning images are a photo of three Australian Aboriginals with the sign painted on their faces, a photo of the peace sign amid antigovernment graffiti on a wall in Algeria in 2001, and an overhead view of some 3000 people forming a torch-lit peace sign in Budapest in 2006.—Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Barry Miles was the chairman of the Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND) in Cheltem in the early '60s, and was on many of the Aldermaston marches. Throughout the late '60s he wrote regularly for and was syndicated by most of the American, and some of the European, underground newspapers including East Village Other, Los Angeles Free Press, San Francisco Oracle, Berkeley Barb, Georgia Straight, Rolling Stone, and Oz. He specializes in writing about the Beat Generation and is the author of many books including: Allen Ginsberg: A Biography (1989), William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible (1992), Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats (1998), the best selling Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (1997) written in collaboration with McCartney. His Hippie (2003) was on the New York Times best-seller list. Miles lives in London. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Readers Digest (April 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762108932
• ISBN-13: 978-0762108930
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 9.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Peace: 50 Years of Protest, March 12, 2009

By 

Lauren M. Rapp - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Peace: 50 Years of Protest (Hardcover)

This book is very interesting. Great photos in book....only complaint would be who i actually purchased it from...the binding had been worn and had a red stamp with an R on it...i suppose indicating a return.....so it was not in new quality as they said it would be. The book itself content-wise was great.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Give PEACE a chance..., October 18, 2008

By 

D. Brunskill "dB" (Riddle, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Peace: 50 Years of Protest (Hardcover)

Nice coffee table book. Nice photos and (albeit sketchy) text. It's a nostalgia piece (no pun intended)...an illustrated outline of the why of a bulk of the 1960's philosophy. I actually had wished for it to be more, but was satisfied enough with what the book explained/portrayed. Sometimes there just are not enough pictures and words, perhaps?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Peace doesn't just happen - this book shows why, December 27, 2010

By 

Lincoln Cushing "Docs Populi" (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peace: 50 Years of Protest (Hardcover)

One of the most iconic logos created during the last half of the 20th century is what we call "the peace symbol," something so generic and so disseminated that most people have no idea where it came from. Created as a key piece of organizational identity by Gerald Holtom in 1958 for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), both that humble logo and that movement have stood the test of time. The history of the early antinuclear movement, spawned during the deep chill of the Cold War, is meticulously and lovingly presented here.

Written by an insider (Miles was chairman of the Youth CND in the early 1960s) this book offers an excellent overview of the nuclear age and its critics, and then proceeds to show how the movement has grown over the years as geopolitical militarism has changed. He also shows how the logo has been adopted by peace groups, ordinary citizens, and the commercial corporate mainstream. Although much of the story is rooted in England (and rightly so), Miles also discusses how CND issues and tactics spread to the United States and other countries concerned with nuclear proliferation and imperialism. It is overall reasonably well researched and illustrated, no lightweight coffee table book. A minor error - Mary Ann Vecchio, the young woman kneeling over a slain student at Kent State after the National Guard shootings on May 4, 1970 was not herself a Kent State student; she was a high school runaway.

It's ironic to note that the Reader's Digest Association published this book, given that they have generally been seen as holding a right wing bias. George Seldes in his 1943 title Facts and Fascism devoted an entire chapter to the Reader's Digest. In the mid 1950s television episodes featuring anti-Communist themes appeared regularly on TV Reader's Digest, an anthology of 65 half-hour family-oriented Reader's Digest stories dramatized on film. And in 1964 Reader's Digest published an article written by a senior editor called "The Country That Saved Itself" extolling the virtues of the brutal Brazilian military coup and dictatorship. The boxed teaser over the headline shouted:

"Seldom has a major nation come closer to the brink of disaster and yet recovered than did Brazil in its recent triumph over Red subversion. The communist drive for domination - marked by propaganda, infiltration, terror - was moving in high gear. Total surrender seemed imminent - and then the people said No!"

May peace prevail.