I won an award which lead to an article which lead to an amazing academic reaction unfolding this month.  Here is the story:

Special Recognition Award 2016

Thanks to the Frank Goetz persistent determination I finally relented and entered his Kellogg Briandt Treaty (law against war) contest, due in April 2016.  But I was shooting for the stars trying to get a reply out of very busy presidential campaigns.  I didn't realize the entry required a reply from the person I sent the letter to.  Only after sending in the 800 word letter to Frank Goetz did I learn about the reply contingency.  I tried everybody, Hillary, Bernie, Trump, even Jill Stein and the Libertarians.  No reply.  I sent the text out as another of my press releases on April 23, 2016 because to use ExpertClick.com you have to have 100% new content, so it needed to be posted before widespread dissemination.  Because I did not get a reply, I thought my chances were over.  Then I got an invitation from Frank Goetz to accept a Special Recognition Award for the letter, which I accepted.  That event happened on August 23, 2016, the eighty-eighth anniversary of the Treaty.  The West Suburban Faith Based Peace Coalition (of Chicago) awarded me this special recognition award by printing the letter along with the first second and third place winners of the contest in the award booklet.  This booklet was handed to everyone at the banquet to celebrate the event and raise money for the ongoing cause.  I was lucky to sit at the same table with the top staff person for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, whose son won second place.  I then went on to give a mind blowing five minute speech about empire and the American condition.  I'm used to blowing minds of those who have not heard me before; the research was equally mind blowing to me as I developed it in 1985 and 1986 for the first book called "Peace Economics".  I learned to emphasize the empire economics aspects of the theory over the course of many years.  A frequent listener to my presentations suggests the empire economics theme is the best way to present my extensive material.

Between August and October 2016

I had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier in the year 2016 with obvious interest showing from the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but this accomplishment did not set the academic world on fire.  I definitely catch a lot of short term attention telling people about that nomination, but then life moves on. What started the academic world on fire was the two entries in the "SAGE Encyclopedia of War, a Social Sciences Perspective" by Paul Joseph, who worked tirelessly helping me perfect those entries.  I was told that the Encyclopedia would go out in October when final editing was approved for my entries in May.  So with the onset of October 1, I put my final copy of these entries out on line in my academia.edu account.  I had come to expect a 10% download rate for my articles overall.  Immediately my 120 (140 today) academic followers took notice and began downloading the article on record pace, especially the "Political Economy of War" article which had a 70% initial download rate per viewing, now 53% after eight months.  Then on October 15^th I posted the "Military Keynesianism" article to a download rate of 35%.  "Military Keynesianism" then got a recommendation from a Nigerian Accounting Professor, former Finance Minister of the country, with over one million views on his academia.edu account.  That got me a 1.1 rating on academia.edu in that category.  Then I upgraded my academia.edu account and found out that I'm in the top 1% there on a 12 month basis (and have been ever since).  With the encyclopedia listings, suddenly three times the usual number of international people have been viewing and downloading my academia papers ever since. After all this on the encyclopedia, Stephen Sachs asked to republish the piece "Dear Future US President" which he called a fine piece on 10-16-16.  This was finally published in the Winter issue of Nonviolent Change Journal p.298-299, online at nonviolentchange.org in February 2017.

Between January and April 2017

After my presentation at the Telos Institute at NYU, at the end of the conference the keynoter approached me humble and speechless as I offered a few words of advice.  His speech could easily have given me another 10 footnotes to my own, but I gave him the big picture.  In March I went to Lake Geneva for GaryCon and found out that I am a legend of wargaming in the "Dungeons and Dragons" world of Gary Gygax followers.  Some suggest they are a better base of support than academics.  Then in April my Geospatial Summit speech was filmed by the ABC affiliate in Madison, WKOW 27, for a future program on "local voices" in the global warming debate.  I continue to do shows on the Mitch Henck radio program for over a year and a half now, about twice a month. He and his audience have grown to love and admire "Dr. Peace."

Very Special May 2017

On May 8th I finally got around to posting the article "Dear Future US President" published in Nonviolent Change Journal, which posting I do for all peer reviewed material on academia.edu.  Because I had the material out there in press release and blog form about a year ago, I usually wait for a new press release that fits with the academia.edu paper.  I got tired of waiting and had sent out new postings to the followers list of about 140 now for about a half year since October.  So I just posted it with the press release about the Special Recognition Award as the second article in the same "paper" posting.  Then I got the most unexpected huge reaction, people love the piece.  The first week ending 5-14-17 has seen an unprecedented MORE DOWNLOADS (44) THAN VIEWS (39).  Top 2% (by month) by 5-20-17 for the first time an individual paper of mine has ranked that high.  Now it is #1 in downloads of all my 69 papers in just two weeks, on 5-21-17, with a total of 59 downloads while views increased to 64.  Downloads for this paper are still at a personal record 92% of views.  Another first is the three unsolicited messages almost immediately from three people after the paper posting.  So congratulations Frank Goetz for goading me and lauding me, helping me boost my reputation to record international levels with an assist by Stephen Sachs the editor of Nonviolent Change Journal!  Now even the US people are taking more notice, although some of the new US postings are from foreigners working or attending US universities.  The exponential curve I've been waiting a long time for may finally be arriving.  It's been quite a year.  New ideas need new people to notice and finally the word is spreading and growing around the world.  It used to be that people just read a few of my postings to get a feel for me, now it increasing looks like patterns of thinking are pursued in the choice of postings to read.  That tells me that people are beginning to go deeper in their thinking about me and my work.  In other words, they are beginning to catch on.

Here are the two writings creating all this political excitement around the world:

https://www.academia.edu/32905059/DEAR_FUTURE_US_PRESIDENT_Spring_2016_3_pages