Synopses & Reviews
Twenty-one years ago, at a friends request, a Massachusetts professor sketched out a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes. It would go on to be translated, photocopied, and handed from one activist to another, traveling from country to country across the globe: from Iran to Venezuelawhere
both countries consider Gene Sharp to be an enemy of the stateto Serbia; Afghanistan; Vietnam; the former Soviet Union; China; Nepal; and, more recently and notably, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, where it has served as a guiding light of the Arab Spring.
This short, pithy, inspiring, and extraordinarily clear guide to overthrowing a dictatorship by nonviolent means lists 198 specific methods to consider, depending on the circumstances: sit-ins, popular nonobedience, selective strikes, withdrawal of bank deposits, revenue refusal, walkouts, silence, and hunger strikes. From Dictatorship to Democracy is the remarkable work that has made the little-known Sharp into the worlds most effective and sought-after analyst of resistance to authoritarian regimes.
Synopsis
"What Sun Tzu and Clausewitz were to war, Sharp. . . was to nonviolent struggle--strategist, philosopher, guru."--
The New York Times The revolutionary word-of-mouth phenomenon, available for the first time as a trade book
Twenty-one years ago, at a friend's request, a Massachusetts professor sketched out a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes. It would go on to be translated, photocopied, and handed from one activist to another, traveling from country to country across the globe: from Iran to Venezuela--where both countries consider Gene Sharp to be an enemy of the state--to Serbia; Afghanistan; Vietnam; the former Soviet Union; China; Nepal; and, more recently and notably, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, where it has served as a guiding light of the Arab Spring.
This short, pithy, inspiring, and extraordinarily clear guide to overthrowing a dictatorship by nonviolent means lists 198 specific methods to consider, depending on the circumstances: sit-ins, popular nonobedience, selective strikes, withdrawal of bank deposits, revenue refusal, walkouts, silence, and hunger strikes. From Dictatorship to Democracy is the remarkable work that has made the little-known Sharp into the world's most effective and sought-after analyst of resistance to authoritarian regimes.
About the Author
Gene Sharp is considered the most influential living promoter of non-violent resistance to autocratic governments and continues to advise governments and resistance movements around the world. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and was previously at Harvard Universitys Center of International Affairs, and he holds degrees from universities across the planet. In 2008, for his lifelong commitment to the defense of freedom, democracy, and the reduction of political violence, he was given the Courage of Conscience Award. He is also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.