Even in places of deadly national conflict, some very ordinary people are routinely doing peace. In this study, Cynthia Cockburn takes us into three war situations to reveal how certain women have quietly chosen to cross the space between their differences with words instead of bullets. In Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Bosnia/Hercegovina she has been closely involved with three remarkable women's projects that have chosen co-operation. How, she asks, do they fill the dangerous space between them with words instead of bullets? How do they make democracy out of difference? Observing, using first-hand accounts and photographs, how these women's alliances create a safe space in which to work together, we learn more about the dangers of essentialism and the problematic relationship between identity and democracy.