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Press for Conversion! (P4C!)

Read P4C! online here

Press for Conversion!
began in 1989/90 as a quarterly publication of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT). It has been edited and produced since then by Richard Sanders.

P4C!'s first decade:  The 1990s
The magazine was first published in the winter of 1989/1990, soon after the creation of COAT to expose and oppose a huge arms bazaar in Ottawa called ARMX.  (Read more about that campaign and succeeding ones here.) For about a decade, the magazine focused almost exclusively on global efforts to promote a "peace dividend" and specifically to transform military production and infrastructure to socially-useful and environmentally-sound, civilian alternatives.  As such, it was the only periodical in Canada, perhaps the world, devoted to the coverage and promotion of military conversion.  Each issue contained news and information from around the world on many practical and theoretical dimensions of economic conversion.  The magazine also included articles on how the weapons trade, particularly Canada's military exports, impacted upon human rights in "Third World" countries.

Expanding the concept of "conversion"
In 1999 COAT expanded its concept of "conversion" beyond the limited economic definition that relates to the transformation of military industries and bases. Since then,  Press for Conversion! has covered a broad variety of issues of relevance to peace/antiwar, human rights, development and anti-globalization activists. (For more on this broadened understanding of conversion, see Conversion is...)

Click here to read issues since 1999 (with summaries of each issue and comments).

Or click the Press for Conversion! cover images and titles on the COAT webpage.

Please feel free to share Press for Conversion! articles, and whole issues. 
Be sure to acknowledge the source and to link to the COAT and  Press for Conversion! webpages. Thanks



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Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade                                Press for Conversion!