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Title: Power and Struggle (Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 1) by Gene Sharp ISBN: 0-87558-070-X Publisher: Porter Sargent Publishers Pub. Date: 01 June, 1973 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: REQUIRED READING FOR ALL!
Comment: Gene Sharp's The Politics of Nonviolent Action is a landmark study of nonviolence in three volumes: Power and Struggle, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, and The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action. Power and Struggle begins with an analysis of the nature of political power. Sharp, Senior Scholar at the Albert Einstein Institution, reveals that political power is not intrinsic to rulers but derives exclusively from citizens. Thus political power requires social support. And therein lies the key to nonviolent action: "Political power disintegrates when people withdraw their obedience and support" (pg. 63). Next Sharp attempts to correct some common "misconceptions" about nonviolence. Among these corrections, he insists: "Success with nonviolent action does not require (though it may be helped by) shared standards and principles, a high degree of community of interests, or a high degree of psychological closeness between contending groups" (pg. 71). Finally, Sharp outlines a brief history of nonviolent action, from plebeian noncooperation in ancient Rome to modern movements like the Czechoslovakian civilan resistance of 1968. Power and Stuggle is an important step in the study of nonviolent political change and an indispensable reference for its practice.However, many scholars and activists criticize Sharp's otherwise execellent model for its deevaluation of nonviolence's spiritual dimension. All societies will inevitably require change not only at the political level, but also the social. And to believe political change will, in turn, affect a social change is to deny Sharp's model of political power, which states that the political power of states resides in their citizens. Therefore, in order to affect social change it becomes necessary to utilize methods of "shared standards and principles," that is, to utilize the spiritual dimension of nonviolent action. Indeed the required depth of spirituality appears proportionaly equal to the depth of social change to be affected. If government is the will of the people manifest, then the nonviolent activist must change the will of the people, not the government. When viewed in this light we see why both Gandhi's and King's movements ultimately failed. Both successfuly affected political change but were assassinated before social change could be completed. Thus the strained relations between Hindus and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent and the remaining emotional segregation between blacks and whites in our own nation.Is then the aim of nonviolence not to change the politics but the people, or will Sharp's model work to successfully affect social change?
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Title: A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict by Peter Ackerman, Jack Duvall ISBN: 0312240503 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Is There No Other Way?: The Search for a Nonviolent Future by Michael Nagler ISBN: 1893163164 Publisher: Berkeley Hills Books Pub. Date: 15 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace by Howard Zinn ISBN: 0807014079 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century by Peter Ackerman, Christopher Kruegler ISBN: 0275939162 Publisher: Praeger Paperback Pub. Date: 30 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Conquest of Violence by Joan Valerie Bondurant ISBN: 069102281X Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1988 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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