27 books like Why Civil Resistance Works

Sharon Nepstad analyzes the success and failure of nonviolent resistance movements across a set of global case studies. Her findings highlight two dimensions that probably don’t get as much attention as they deserve.

First, she reveals the importance of civil-military relations in protest movements: the behavior of the military and other state security forces is often decisive to the fate of unarmed uprisings. And this behavior, in turn, is shaped by the recruitment patterns, training, and organizational structure of those forces. The Tianamen Square massacre, for example, only happened after the Chinese government replaced the local patrolling units with military forces from the country's periphery.

Second, Nepstad shows how international support to nonviolent movements can often be counterproductive, as it allows dictators to wave the flag of nationalism against foreign interference. This is an important caution for policymakers and activists thinking about how they can help nonviolent movements around the… show more.

Social media has been a huge part of popular uprisings over the last decade. At first look, social media should be hugely empowering for mass movements: it allows people to communicate, share their idea, and organize.

Then why have nonviolent movements in the era of social media struggled so much to achieve change? Zeynep Tufekci unpacks this puzzle, showing how social media can actually be a shortcut—allowing movements to grow fast without learning skills and building organizing tools—that actually makes them more vulnerable to state repression.

I think this pairs nicely with Pearlman’s lessons about the importance of organization, and is a must-read for activists seeking to more effectively harness the power of social media.

Unarmed uprisings might overthrow dictators…but what happens next?

Jonathan Pinckney explains why nonviolent movements lead to more durable democracies and under what conditions. He combines an analysis of global data with case studies from Nepal, Zambia, and Brazil.

Policymakers and scholars interested in democratization  have often focused their attention on elite negotiations and “pacts.” Pinckney convincingly shows that the most sustainable democratization comes from grassroots mobilization.

Few conflicts have received more global attention than the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. Media commenters frequently ask “Why has there been no Palestinian Gandhi?" Wendy Pearlman shows why this is the wrong question.

Despite difficult structural conditions, and in the face of heavy repression, she shows that there has been widespread use of nonviolent methods by Palestinians. When campaigns have turned violent, she shows that it is often the result of fragmentation within the movement that makes it difficult to ensure discipline and creates incentives to embrace more extreme tactics.

She provides a valuable lesson on the need to pay less attention to high-profile leaders and more attention to the organizations that underpin movements.

Building from the scope of world revolutionaries and revolutions, authors build a compelling idea that nonviolent revolution is something everybody may – and should try at home. Balancing the fine line between solid, historically founded cases and an “academic world” and something which is both accessible and inspiring for the common reader. See numerous cases of common people pushing for massive change, and getting inspired.

At its core, whistleblowing is an act of truth-telling, often in response to official misrepresentation and lies. While not explicitly about whistleblowing, Hannah Arendt’s 1971 essay, “Lying in Politics” is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the subject. Written in the wake of the Pentagon Papers disclosure, it situates the official lies of the Vietnam War within a broader phenomenon of political propaganda. Exploring how propaganda aimed at the public ultimately took hold within senior policymaking circles, it reveals the blurry line between official lies and self-deception. Challenging simple precepts about whistleblowing and public transparency, Arendt explores whether or not and why knowledge of the facts actually makes a difference. Along with the broader collection of essays in Crises of the Republic, this piece offers uncanny insight into post-truth politics and the breakdown of democracy in our day.

Another profound critique of “civilized” values. Thoreau is like Plato in that he always drills down to bedrock truth: What is it that makes for a good life? Individually and collectively?

Be prepared for longueurs. Those who want a pithier critique along more contemporary lines might enjoy the works of the late Ivan Illich, especially Tools for Conviviality.

This book – a history of the act of trespass – explores our relationship with the natural world in a provocative and highly original way.

Starting with the statistic that the public are excluded from 92% of the land of England, Hayes combines history with a meditation on the implications of excluding large swathes of the population from what is, at the end of the day, their own country.

However, this is not a dry political tract but a lyrical and passionately argued text enlivened by the author’s own exploits, trespassing on land across the country and visiting everything from migrant camps in Calais to music festivals to explore the various uses and abuses of shared land. 

The book is angry and defiant, and – because it has helped spark debate – I see it as something fundamentally hopeful.

The author is perhaps best known as an instigator of the “microhistory” field of study (of which I’m an avid fan and sometime practitioner). But he’s also a chronicler of protest, including one book on the worldwide demonstrations of 1968 and another, Ready for a Brand New Beat, that notes the civil rights impact of Martha and the Vandellas’ "Dancing in the Street". I’ve often felt that I was born late, just missing so many of the cultural convulsions that have informed my writing. With Non-Violence (2006) Kurlansky gives us a historical foundation for the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era.

Along with authors like Alyssa Cole and Talia Hibbert, Courtney Milan is a luminary of romance’s liberatory wing. If love can conquer all, let’s aim it at something worthwhile! This book takes one of humanity’s deepest nonviolent instincts, the desire for one another, and shows how it gives people the strength to support each other through the hard work of building a better world. I want to recommend all of Milan’s books, but from a nonviolence perspective, The Devil Comes Courting stands out because of the way it also wrestles with what reconciliation (the last step in Kingian nonviolence) really means.