Michael Nagler

It is often argued that a shared culture, or at least shared cultural references or practices, can help to foster peace and prevent war. This essay examines in detail and criticizes one such argument, made by Patrick Leigh Fermor, in the context of his discussing an incident during World War II, when he and a captured German general found a form of agreement, a ground for peace between them, in their both knowing Horace's ode I.9 by heart in Latin. By way of introducing the sixth and final installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means,” this essay proposes that Leigh Fermor's narrative be understood in terms of commerce, rather than consensus. It concludes by examining Ezra Pound's use of the word commerce in his poem “A Pact” to define his relationship with his “detested” and “pig-headed” poetic “father,” Walt Whitman.

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also called Badshah Khan, is a nearly unknown champion of nonviolence in South Asia and a forgotten Muslim ally of Mohandas Gandhi. The story of Khan's Khudai Khidmatgars movement in what was to become Pakistan is not only inspirational but also instructive, exploding as it does several widespread myths about nonviolence. Today, the United States is embroiled in that region in the longest war in American history and among the Pashtun people from whom Khan arose. Thus his story, according to this article, has a revolutionary potential. When young Malala Yousafzai cited Badshah Khan in a speech at the United Nations in 2013, therefore, she may have done more good than she realized.

This comprehensive Gandhi reader provides an essential new reference for scholars and students of his life and thought. It is the only text available that presents Gandhi's own writings, including excerpts from three of his books—An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, Hind Swaraj —a major pamphlet, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, and many journal articles and letters, along with a biographical sketch of his life in historical context and recent essays by highly regarded scholars.