Description

Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein had very different cultural backgrounds and personalities. At the same time, they were united in their tenacious battle for peace; it began with the Great War and culminated in their famous 1955 Manifesto. Through various kinds of pacifism they sought to encapsulate the dilemmas and problems that derived from the changed political conditions of his time: the beginning of the Great War, the creation and failure of the League of Nations, the affirmation of totalitarian regimes, the outbreak of the Second World War, the origin of the atomic age and the escalation of the Cold War, the establishment of the UN with its political and institutional weakness, and the need for a world government in the form of a world federation. Their reflections on the subject of peace led them into dialogue with some of the greatest figures of their time: R. Rolland, Th. Woodrow Wilson, V. I. Lenin, F. D. Roosevelt, J. F. Kennedy, N. Khrushchev, F. Castro, S. Freud, L. Szilárd and E. Reves. Claudio Giulio Anta earned a doctorate in History of Political Thought and Political Institutions from the University of Turin.