Ryan McAnany

Tied by a Florentine Knot Ryan McAnany

"Peace and justice are hard work, but Giorgio La Pira taught us how one person can move mountains. This small anecdote illustrates how he understood the importance and power of civil society: One evening Giorgio called me (Cora) in New York, looking for Peter. But Peter was in Strasbourg at the European Court of Human Rights. He needed Peter to meet him the next day in Florence, fifteen hours away. I tracked Peter down at the restaurant where he had gone for dinner, gave La Pira the number, and Peter made the next train. As it turned out, Giorgio wanted to convey an urgent personal message to the US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk: if the US bombed Hanoi, there would be no possibility of peace talks. You need to read this remarkable book to get the rest of this story and many more. We all should have learned about Mayor La Pira in school, but like so many other citizen diplomats, he and his unique work for peace are not in our history books. Thank you, Ryan and Molly, for bringing the life and work of this giant peacemaker to new generations of readers." --Cora Weiss: Early member of Women Strike for Peace (WSP), President of The Hague Appeal for Peace, and former President of the International Peace Bureau from 2000-2006. Peter Weiss: Director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and Vice President