This book owes its existence to WIDER. It was planned,drafted, reformulated and finalized at WIDER. Dr Carlo Fonseka, the medically qualifiedProfessor of Physiology in the Medical Faculty of the Universityof Colombo, Sri Lanka, was invited to come up with a diagnosis of the maladyafflicting Sri Lanka,s body social and a prescription forreconstructing a stable peace in the country. This book embodies his response to that challenge. The book contains the material ofan introductory course of six seminars, ostensibly intended for Sri Lanka,s university students. It is clear, however, that they are aimed not so much at university students as at a wider educated public. Understandably, as a professional teacher, he lays great store by the value of education. This book offers university students another script to read. It is theoutcome of an attempt to combine a description of the modernworld, an assessment of Sri Lanka,s place in it and a strategy forbuilding a peaceful society in Sri Lanka. The material presented here is divided to form the substanceof a course of six introductory seminars addressed to universitystudents in Sri Lanka. The seminars aim at presenting a series ofelementary propositions, which an ordinary university teacher, with perhaps more than an ordinary interest in public issues, carries inhis head.