Introduction
Children don’t Start Wars demonstrates the way our capacity for empathy develops as we grow up and declines as we grow older, and discusses the implications of this development and decline.

That is an intellectual description. It could also be described as a heart-felt attack on the all too commonly accepted view that children are irresponsible, adolescents are vandals and adults always know best. Or a declaration of support for young people. Or an anthology of adult inadequacies. Or a statement of a particular philosophy, supported by evidence from psychological research, quotations from a wide variety of sources and my own experience.

The book has been growing for many years. As my son Nathan said when Considering Children was implicitly criticised for not saying anything new, it is not meant to be new, it is meant to be right. Old ideas are connected in new ways, and the result is an unfashionable optimism.

Children don’t start wars, but adults do. Perhaps if we can learn to listen more carefully to the young, the world will become a better place.

Children Don’t Start Wars has been published as a paper-back by Peace News. The ISBN is
978-0-946409-14-3. Price £9

Other books about democratic education by David Gribble http://www.davidgribble.co.uk/books.htm