Abstract
"Man is a wolf for man" wrote the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes. He meant that men, according to nature, were constantly fighting against each other. The history of International Relations fits completely in this analysis since groups, ethnicities and later nation -states have always been waging wars among themselves for land, interests or power. Hobbes defined peace among men like a simple truce, "a period when war was neither imminent nor actually being fought". However can we really consider that this point of view defines peace? With Kant and the Enlightenment which opened modernity, mankind learnt that this vicious circle of fighting and slaughters could be abolished for ever, and that a "perpetual peace", the synonym of a new peaceful order had to be settled. Here, we will consider that the Kantian concept of peace is the only one. Can we then say that "peace is a recent invention"?
