‘People Power and Nonviolent Action: Launch of New Guide’

Book launch + discussion of the vital influence and importance of nonviolent techniques in civil movements across the globe.

Contributing editors April Carter and Michael Randle launch ‘A Guide to Civil Resistance: A Bibliography of People Power and Nonviolent Protest Vol.1’ (£10, Green Print, 2013). Our guests will be discussing the vital influence and importance of nonviolent techniques in civil movements across the globe, and introducing the book.

From the foreword by Paul Rogers:

“If we talk about 'people power' or 'nonviolent action', most people will immediately think of Gandhi or Martin Luther King, a few will recall the end of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in the mid-1980s, and some others will remember or have heard of the Prague Spring nearly two decades earlier. Moreover, for most activists and others involved in peace action and movements for social change, there will be little knowledge of the theories of nonviolent action and still less of the huge number of actions taken in so many countries and in such different circumstances across the world. Even recent events across the Middle East are rarely put in a broader historical context. The book is subtitled A Bibliography of People Power and Nonviolent Protest, but it is much more than this. Although the focus is on post-1945 movements, the opening section provides a wide-ranging introduction to the history and theoretical bases of nonviolent action, as well as reflecting the most recent contributions to the literature and citing key reference works and internet sites. All the main sources have accounts of their content and relevance, frequently managing to get to the core of the books or articles in just a couple of sentences.

What really comes across is the sheer range of examples contained within this bibliography. It is extraordinarily impressive, taking us through the campaigns in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the earlier actions in late colonial Africa, campaigns of nonviolent resistance in Latin America and the Middle East and the growing number of 'electoral revolutions' since 2000, especially in post Soviet states and Africa, and the burgeoning resistance to repression in various forms.”

About the editors

April Carter: Involved in the peace and nonviolent movement since the late 1950s, former Secretary of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, 1958-61, Assistant Editor of Peace News, 1961-62, member of the Alternative Defence Commission, 1980-1988. Has lectured in politics at the universities of Lancaster, Oxford, and Queensland. Currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University. Publications include: The Political Theory of Anarchism, Harper & Row, 1971; Peace Movements, Longmans, 1992; Direct Action and Democracy Today, Polity Press 2005; People Power and Political Change, Routledge 2012.

Michael Randle: also involved in peace and anti-nuclear war campaigning since the 1950s. Chair of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, 1958-61, Secretary of the Committee of 100, 1960-61, Secretary of the Alternative Defence Commission, 1980-88, Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies, 1991-2008. Publications include People Power: the Building of a New European Home, Hawthorn Press, 1991; Civil Resistance, Fontana, 1994; Challenge to Nonviolence (editor), Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 2002.

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