The Failure of Nonviolence

From the Arab Spring to the plaza occupation movement in Spain, the student movement in the UK and Occupy in the US, many new social movements have started peacefully, only to adopt a diversity of tactics as they grew in strength and collective experiences. This is Peter Gelderloos’s latest offering on a topic he covered in his How Nonviolence Protects the State  published a few years ago.

The Failure of Nonviolence examines recent major social upheavals since the end of the Cold War to establish the limits of nonviolent protest, and suggest what a diverse, unruly, non-pacified movement might achieve. Focusing especially on the Arab Spring, the Colour Revolutions and the "15M" movement in Spain, this book discusses how movements for social change can win ground and clear the spaces necessary to plant the seeds of a new world.