A. Ceretti, R. Cornelli (2026) For a Possible Peace: Responsibility, Justice, and Repair in the Time of Wars
April 08th, 2026
In a time when war is once again becoming the everyday language of politics and of our collective imagination, Ceretti and Cornelli offer a radical, countercurrent reflection: is peace still thinkable? And under what conditions?
The book "Per una pace possibile. Responsabilità, giustizia e riparazione al tempo delle guerre" [For a Possible Peace: Responsibility, Justice, and Repair in the Time of Wars] opens with a striking image: Fragmentos, the counter-monument created in Bogotá by melting down the weapons surrendered by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia after the 2016 peace agreement. Not a celebratory monument, but a floor meant to be walked on. Not a symbol of victory, but an experience that forces us to confront wounds, memory, and responsibility. From this starting point unfolds a theoretical and political exploration of the meaning of demilitarization, the trauma of violence, and the possibility of piecing back together the fragments of a torn social body.
Ceretti and Cornelli examine how contemporary conflicts are changing: societies fractured along ethical, religious, and political lines that are increasingly difficult to reconcile; languages that claim absolute authority; identities that harden to the point of making coexistence impossible. In such a landscape, “war” and “peace” are no longer unambiguous concepts, but words multiplied, contested, and often emptied of meaning.
Their argument is demanding: peace is neither a naïve utopia nor a simple ceasefire, but a labor of limits—limits on force, on power, on hatred, on claims to absoluteness. Only by acknowledging these limits—individually and collectively—can conflicts be steered away from destructive drift and restored to a political dimension.
This is a rigorous yet vividly grounded essay, interweaving philosophy, criminology, social theory, and ethical–political reflection. A necessary book for understanding our present and for reopening, with clarity, the space for a peace that is not rhetorical, but possible.
More information is available on the Feltrinelli Editore website.