In this groundbreaking and controversial critique of the selections of Nobel Peace Prize winners, an eminent Norwegian lawyer and peace activist calls for its return to legal and moral compliance with the will of Alfred Nobel who wished to support disarmament to prevent war.
The Nobel Peace Prize is the world's most coveted award, galvanizing the world's attention for 110 years. In recent decades, it has also become the world's most reviled award, as heads of militarized states and out-and-out warmongers and terrorists have been showered with peace prizes. Delving into previously unpublished primary sources, Fredrik Heffermehl reveals the history of the inner workings of the Norwegian Nobel Committee as it has come under increasing political, geopolitical, and commercial pressures to make inappropriate awards.
As a Norwegian lawyer, Heffermehl makes the case that the Norwegian politicians entrusted with the Nobel peace awards have brushed aside the legal requirements in Scandinavian estate law using the prize to promote their own political and personal interests instead of the peace ideas Alfred Nobel had in mind. Evaluating each of the 119 Nobel Peace Prizes awarded between 1901 and 2009, the author tracks the ever-widening divergence of the committee's selections from Nobel's intentions and concludes that all but one of the last ten prizes are illegitimate under the law.
- 264 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I
- 1. Introduction
- 2. An Idea Ahead of Its Time
- 3. Interpreting Nobel’s Will
- 4. The Execution of Nobel’s Will
- 5. The Peace Prize in Danger
- 6. After World War II: Politics Distorting the Prize
- 7. From 1990: The Prize under Political and Corporate Control
- 8. The Peace Movement: Starving but Persisting
- 9. A More Important and Much More Useful Peace Prize
- 10. What Now for the Peace Prize?
- PART II
- 11. Norway Shuts Its Eyes to the Law
- 12. Peace Prize 2009: The Obama Gasp
- 13. In Search of the Lost Nobel
- 14. An Urgent About-Turn
- Appendix 1: How to Earn the Nobel Peace Prize
- Appendix 2: Excerpts from Gunnar Jahn’s Diaries
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
- eCopyright
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Yes, you can access The Nobel Peace Prize by Fredrik S. Heffermehl in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Historical Biographies. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.