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Peace on Earth

Every year (with some exceptions), the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Dating back to 1901, many prominent figures have been recognized with this prestigious award, notably Barack Obama for strengthening international diplomacy, Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk for the termination of the apartheid regime, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Since 1990, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded on December 10th in Oslo City Hall in Norway on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

To date, 97 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded. According to The Guardian, the U.S. has had more Nobel prize winners than any other country in every category other than literature. A total of 16 of the recipients have been women.

The award’s origins can be traced back to Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel. According to Nobelprize.org, when Nobel passed away in 1896, his will stated that most of his vast wealth was to be designated for five prizes. Beyond physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature, it included a prize for peace.

In 1968, in memory of Nobel, Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, established another prize in economic sciences. It is financed by a donation received, in 1968, by the Nobel Foundation from Sveriges Riksbank on its 300th anniversary.

While some suggest that the Peace Prize was Nobel’s way of compensating for the inventions of dynamite and ballistite (a smokeless propellant made from high explosives), which were both used for destructive purposes during his lifetime, others believe that Nobel’s acquaintance with peace activist Bertha von Suttner, who received the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize, influenced his views and the creation of the award.

Every year, the prize recipients are selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee—a five-member committee appointed by the Parliament of Norway. In 2016, the award was presented to Bob Dylan for literature, marking the first songwriter ever to receive the award.

Others who received the Nobel Prize in Literature include Ernest Hemingway, in 1954, “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.”

In 1957, the award was presented to author Albert Camus “for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.” Camus is also the author of The Fall.

For more reading on Alfred Nobel’s Prizes, explore “The Nobel Prize in 1904.”

By Regina Molaro