A Dales academic has a hectic new year ahead promoting a major new reference book on peace.

Professor Nigel Young has edited the Oxford International Encyclopaedia of Peace and, according to early reviews, it’s destined to be the definitive guide for researchers, students and policy-makers throughout the world.

The Dalai Lama has written the foreword to the four-volume work featuring the finest international scholarship on peace studies, conflict mediation and non-violent alternative to war, The publication marks the end of a painstaking six-year project for 71-year-old Professor Young, of Hetton House, Hetton, who is a research professor in peace studies at Colgate University in New York, where he was a lecturer for more than 20 years.

He was also deputy head of the UK’s first peace studies department at Bradford University and was there in the early 1970s when it was considered experimental and its staff helped put the city on the world stage.

Professor Young holds a BA and MA in modern history from Oxford and a PhD in international studies from the University of California at Berkeley. His career has taken him all over the world with his working life mainly based in America, but he has always maintained his link with the Dales, where he has had a home for nearly 40 years.

“I got involved in peace issues and was concerned about nuclear testing even before the start of CND,” said Professor Young, who has been married to Antonia for 45 years and has four grown-up daughters.

“Having lived through the atomic bombings in the Second World War as a child, I was deeply concerned and feared we would finish up having a nuclear war. It remains a concern for me.”

After Oxford, he became a full-time organiser and founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008.

Professor Young believes the central message of CND – whose members campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons – is as relevant today as it was in 1958.

Professor Young scoured the world for contributions from experts to the encyclopaedia.

“I’m very proud of the encyclopaedia. There are four big volumes containing about two million words. There are 420 authors and around 850 separate entries and topics,” he said.

“I particularly like the contribution from Paul Rogers on Global Terrorism and I think mine on the origins of CND is quite good.

“I think it’s a bargain for the current price of £200. It’s within the price range of someone getting a good salary, but I think it will be mainly bought by libraries and will also be available as an e-book.

“I’m particularly excited that we were able to put together a peace timeline containing events for every year going back centuries. It runs to about 30 pages and is unique.”

It’s a testament to the respect in which Professor Young is held that the Dalai Lama agreed to write the foreword. In it, he says: “I hope this important new encyclopaedia will reach a global lay audience as well as policy makers and academic experts and encourage many thousands of readers to study further and work harder for the peace on which our whole future depends.”

Key subjects include the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dayton Accords, the Good Friday Agreement and the Lebanon Hostage Crisis. The encyclopaedias also feature in-depth profiles of the work and significance of world leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, Margaret Mead, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King.

The Encyclopaedia of Peace costs £200 until June 30 and £300 thereafter. The official UK launch is at Bradford University in March.

Professor Young is currently working on his next book, featuring significant events that have made peace in the world possible.

He said he had no intention of retiring. “What’s the point?” he asked.