Oscar Arias was born in Costa Rica in 1941. When he was a child, Costa Rica became the first country to disband its standing army. This allowed Costa Rica to invest in education, healthcare and the environment. Oscar studied law and economics in Costa Rica, the United States, and Great Britain, eventually receiving a doctorate in economics. He joined the social democratic party and became a member of the government in the 1970s. Arias was elected President in 1986 amid a civil war in neighboring Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

As president, he took measures to deal with Costa Rica’s heavy foreign debt and other economic problems, but his main interest was in trying to restore peace and political stability to the war-torn countries of Central America. In February 1987, he proposed a regional peace plan for the Central American countries, called the Arias Plan, that set a date for cease-fires between government and rebel forces, ensured amnesty for political prisoners, and called for free and democratic elections in those countries.

The Arias Plan laid the foundation for the peace process that eventually succeeded in Central America.In October 1987, Oscar Arias was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts to achieve the beginnings of peace in the region. With the Nobel Prize money, he formed the Arias Foundation for Peace & Human Progress to promote peace, justice, and equality in Central America. He was re-elected as President of Costa Rica from 2006-2010, after the country amended its constitution to allow him to run again. Oscar Arias continues to work for peace in Central America, keeping the vision of the Arias Plan alive.

This is the story of a tiny country that made a decision to do something that no other country had ever done — it decided to abolish its army and declare peace to the world. And this is the story of a young boy who grew up in that country, and how he ended up challenging — and sometimes even convincing — the greatest powers in the world to follow Costa Rica’s example.“Oscar Arias: Without a Shot Fired” is a Don Quixote-like saga with great historical touchstones — Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Cold War politics and Communism, Central American War and Peace. It follows a slight, academic, and most unlikely hero over the course of more than fifty years, as he travels the world in a quest to stop the spread of the weapons of war. In the end, it is a story about the triumph of reason, of the sparrow triumphing over the eagle, and how the impossible dream can sometimes come true.