A Realistic Path to Peace: From Genocide to Global War... And How We Can Change It (People Power and the Pursuit of Peace)

A Realistic Path to Peace: From Genocide to Global War, And How We Can Stop It
Direct, urgent, and fiercely courageous, A Realistic Path to Peace is essential reading for anyone seeking truth beyond headlines — and for everyone determined to build a more just, humane, and peaceful world.

This newly updated 2025 edition, with a new forward for the Trump era, and a new “preface to the Chinese edition” dated December 2025, shows how the crisis of war has swept across the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, and back again to the Persian Gulf, while still raging in eastern Europe (Ukraine and Russia), West Asia (Israel, Palestine, and their neighbors), and East Asia.

“A carefully considered, well-researched, and copiously sourced clarion call to those committed to finding a path to lasting peace.” — IndieReader

“A must read for anyone wanting to understand how the U.S. is pursuing war with Russia and China and why it must be stopped.” — Danny Haiphong

Dee Knight has spent fifty years inside the history this book analyzes, not observing it from a distance. He edited Amex-Canada during the Vietnam resistance. He witnessed the Carnation Revolution in Portugal firsthand in 1975. He worked as a technical consultant to the Sandinista newspaper Barricada in Nicaragua through the 1980s. He helped organize the protests that brought millions into the streets against the Iraq War.

A Realistic Path to Peace is the result of that lived history. Gerry Condon, former president of Veterans for Peace, calls the book’s essays “a clear articulation of one essential truth about the greatest threat facing humanity today.” Carlos Martinez of Friends of Socialist China calls it essential reading. Jeremy Kuzmarov of CovertAction Magazine praises its “clarity and urgency in revitalizing the peace movement.” A reader who approached the book skeptical of its premise finished it and called it a must-read for lovers of international politics.

This is not abstract policy analysis. It is the record of a life spent in the organizing centers, the newsrooms, and the streets of resistance, written by someone who knows, with evidence, that people power has stopped wars before and can stop them again. For readers of antiwar nonfiction, U.S. foreign policy critique, and anti-imperialist analysis who want more than theory. For anyone trying to understand what is really driving the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and both West and East Asia, and what a genuine peace movement rooted in truth and justice could look like.

You’ll discover the truth hidden by official propaganda, this time unraveled by on-site observers and full documentation.
In a world on the brink of global war, this powerful book cuts through noise, propaganda, and political manipulation to expose the real forces driving today’s most devastating conflicts. From the genocide in Palestine to the Ukraine–Russia war, piracy in the Caribbean, and rising tensions across Asia, Knight traces how U.S. militarism and media distortion fuel worldwide violence while undermining the prospects for genuine peace.

A Book for Truth-Seekers, Activists, and Anyone Who Cares About Humanity’s Future
Through sharp analysis, historical context, and uncompromising moral clarity, Knight offers a sweeping exploration of:

• The roots of genocide and global war.
• The hidden logic behind U.S. imperial strategy.
• The economic and political machinery sustaining endless conflict.
• How propaganda shapes public perception.
• The rising international movement for justice, liberation, and lasting peace.

Dee Knight has spent his life inside the movements his books describe. During the years of the U.S. war in Vietnam, Knight edited Amex-Canada, the newsletter of American exiles and expatriates who chose Canada over complicity. From Toronto, from 1968 to 1974, he gave voice to a generation that refused.In 1973, Knight helped launch the National Council for Universal Unconditional Amnesty, waging a national campaign to end government repression of war resisters and active-duty soldiers. That campaign won a partial victory in January 1977 when President Jimmy Carter granted a limited amnesty. The fight has never stopped.In 1975, Knight witnessed the Carnation Revolution, Portugal's extraordinary uprising led by the Armed Forces Movement and People's Power organizations. His reports appeared in New York's Guardian newspaper. He helped found the American Portuguese Overseas Information Organization, a collective of journalists committed to defending the Portuguese revolution.Through the 1980s, Knight worked inside the Sandinista press in Nicaragua, serving as a technical consultant to Barricada, the official newspaper of the revolution. He watched what people's power looked like when it governed, and what happened when empire moved to destroy it.In the 1990s, Knight served as a publishing consultant for the United Nations Development Programme in New York, where he saw firsthand the machinery of international institutions, their potential and their limits.When the United States moved toward its invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s, Knight was part of the national organizing that brought millions into the streets across the U.S. and the world. He has written continuously for the movements he believes in, appearing in CounterPunch, Veterans For Peace News, Covert Action Magazine, Workers World, LA Progressive, Hollywood Progressive, and Courage To Resist.Knight holds a Bachelor's degree from York University and a Master's degree in Public Administration from New York University. He is a member of the Advisory Council of Friends of Socialist China and the China Working Group of the International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America.His political memoir, My Whirlwind Lives: Navigating Decades of Storms, was published in 2022. Chapter summaries and video recordings of A Realistic Path to Peace can be found at realpathtopeace.com and on his Patreon, Dee Knight's Books, Notes and Chats.A Realistic Path to Peace is not written from the outside looking in. It is written by someone who has been inside the machinery of resistance for more than fifty years. That is the authority behind every page.