If the characteristic feature of the critical thinking is the questioning of the mythologies that affect the current opinions, the recent book of Domenico Losurdo is an excellent example of this school of thought. Now Losurdo engages in the deconstruction, never prejudicially hostile but rather full of genuine sympathy for the essential core, of non-violence. In order to achieve this goal he delivers a detailed history of the pacifist and non-violent theories and practices, starting with Kant's idea of perpetual peace and the with the first pacifist movements in the USA of the nineteenth century. An important and timely book in a period of increasing danger of war!