No Peace Prize was awarded in 1955 or 1956. The 1957 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Lester Bowles Pearson, of Canada, the former Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada and former President of the the Session of the United Nations General Assembly, for his role in trying to end the Suez conflict and to solve the Middle East question through the United Nations. He said in his Nobel Lecture: “But while we all pray for peace, we do not always, as free citizens, support the policies that make for peace or reject those which do not. We want our own kind of peace, brought about in our own way. The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.”
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes created by the Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel. Since 1901 it has been awarded annually (with some exceptions) 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” Over the next few months we’ll be introducing you to the past Nobel laureates, leading up to the award of the 2016 prize in October.
