"This book mounts perhaps the most impressive argument ever made that there exists a viable and desirable alternative to the continued reliance on war." -The New York Times
At times of global crisis, Jonathan Schell's writings have offered important alternatives to conventional thinking. Now, as conflict escalates around the world, Schell gives us an impassioned, provocative book that points the way out of the unparalleled devastation of the twentieth century toward another, more peaceful path.
Tracing the expansion of violence to its culmination in nuclear stalemate, Schell uncovers a simultaneous but little-noted history of nonviolent action at every level of political life. His investigation ranges from the revolutions of America, France, and Russia, to the people's wars of China and Vietnam, to the great nonviolent events of modern times-including Gandhi's independence movement in India and the explosion of civic activity that brought about the surprising collapse of the Soviet Union.
Suggesting foundations of an entirely new kind on which to construct an enduring peace, The Unconquerable World is a bold book of sweeping significance.
From The Unconquerable World:
The twentieth century produced the most extreme violence that the human species had ever visited upon itself. It was natural—indeed, a necessity—that people would react against that violence, would seek ways to overcome it, to escape it, to go around it, to replace it. In earlier times, violence had been seen as the last resort when all else had failed. But in the twentieth century, a new problem forced itself on the human mind: What was the resort when that last resort had bankrupted itself? Was there a resort beyond the “final” resort? Nuclear deterrence and people’s war were two groping, improvised, incomplete attempts to find answers to this question.
| Introduction: The Towers and the Wall | 1 | |
| Pt. 1 | Violence | 11 |
| 1 | The Rise and Fall of the War System | 13 |
| 2 | "Nuclear War" | 47 |
| 3 | People's War | 63 |
| Pt. 2 | Nonviolence | 101 |
| 4 | Satyagraha | 103 |
| 5 | Nonviolent Revolution, Nonviolent Rule | 143 |
| 6 | The Mass Minority in Action: France and Russia | 164 |
| 7 | Living in Truth | 186 |
| 8 | Cooperative Power | 216 |
| Pt. 3 | The Civil State | 233 |
| 9 | The Liberal Democratic Revival | 235 |
| 10 | Liberal Internationalism | 265 |
| 11 | Sovereignty | 280 |
| Pt. 4 | The Shapes of Things to Come | 303 |
| 12 | Niagara | 305 |
| 13 | The Logic of Peace | 332 |
| Notes | 389 | |
| Acknowledgments | 415 | |
| Index | 417 |
Overview
"This book mounts perhaps the most impressive argument ever made that there exists a viable and desirable alternative to the continued reliance on war." -The New York Times
At times of global crisis, Jonathan Schell's writings have offered important alternatives to conventional thinking. Now, as conflict escalates around the world, Schell gives us an impassioned, provocative book that points the way out of the unparalleled devastation of the ...