Abstract This proto-biographical article traces the trajectory of peace research pioneer Johan Galtung (1930–2024) from precocious student-cum-teacher in Oslo to old age in Spain as head of Transcend, the network he established to promote his peacemaking efforts, his publications, and his views on world affairs. His organizational achievements—most notably the establishment of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Journal of Peace Research (JPR), and Transcend—are depicted, as well as his seminal contributions to peace research as an academic discipline via articles and concepts that shaped the field, such as the dichotomy negative/positive peace and the triangle direct/structural/cultural violence. It is argued that Galtung tired of (negative) peace research shortly after he got a chair in Conflict and Peace Research at the University of Oslo in 1969. Having left Oslo in 1977 for a never-ending worldwide tour of lectures and guest professorships, Galtung continued to teach and write, at an astonishing speed and on a wealth of topics, from (U.S.) imperialism to macro-history to Buddhism. He attracted new adherents but also lost erstwhile followers as he substituted mathematical-empirical sociology and conceptual analysis with deep-cultural, free-ranging theorizing, and promulgated conspiracy theories that tainted him with charges of antisemitism.
Tor Egil Førland (Sun,) studied this question.