The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action - Kindle edition by Michael N. Nagler.
The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action Kindle Edition
by Michael N. Nagler (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 14 customer reviews
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“Nonviolence is not the recourse of the weak but actually calls for an uncommon kind of strength; it is not a refraining from something but the engaging of a positive force,” renowned peace activist Michael Nagler writes. Here he offers a step-by-step guide to creatively using nonviolence to confront any problem and to build change movements capable of restructuring the very bedrock of society.
Nagler identifies some specific tactical mistakes made by unsuccessful nonviolent actions such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the Occupy protests and includes stories of successful nonviolent resistance from around the world, including an example from Nazi Germany. And he shows that nonviolence is more than a tactic—it is a way of living that will enrich every area of our lives.
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See all 14 customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book!
By Shai Ford on April 27, 2014
Michael Nagler's 'Search for a Non-Violent Future' was used in several courses that I have taken on peace and non-violence studies. And, while it is an excellent book, I found it a little lengthy and full of examples and stories moreso than practical application. This Nonviolence Handbook is exactly for what I was looking! It takes the theories and stories within Search for a Nonviolent Future and turns them into applicable steps in much shorter chapters. This book is great for the college or nonviolence training classroom!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and thoughtful and practical presentation of nonvolence
By Timothy J. Gannon VINE VOICE on June 12, 2014
I have followed Mr. Nagler and his mentor Eknath Easwaran for many years. Nonviolence is a mental challenge for me. This brings the many strands of the spiritual dimensions of nonviolence together with practical examples of how to focus on the problem and avoid humiliation of either party. I am working to bring these concepts into my life and my thoughts. The creativity demanded is very demanding. Even for such a simple thing as helping my younger daughter resolve school conflicts and low level domestic conflict.
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wise and Practical
By Christie Billups, D.Min. on June 27, 2015
Pithy, readable and practical! A book that will definitely inform my work in launching a Peace Studies program at my institution. It could easily be used as a text or a reference. Students would get a lot out of it's practicality rooted in the wisdom of activists and academics while not getting weighed down by lengthy monologues on theory. I've recommended it to others and do so here as well.
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Michael Nagler transmits Gandhi
By D. Hazen on September 2, 2014
Michael Nagler is a student of a direct student of Gandhi. He eloquently transmits the importance of being the change we wish to see in the world, and creating constructive alternatives to the current domination system, BEFORE launching a campaign of nonviolent resistance, which is much broader and deeper than the commonly understood mechanisms of protest demonstrations which are ineffective and unsafe for the participants. This is a book about loving your enemies, and making them into your friends, so be ready for a radical challenge. I believe the message of this book is so important that I bought a box of 20 to distribute to my friends.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
The Art of Satyagraha
By David Swanson on June 3, 2014
Michael Nagler has just published The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action, a quick book to read and a long one to digest, a book that's rich in a way that people of a very different inclination bizarrely imagine Sun Tzu's to be. That is, rather than a collection of misguided platitudes, this book proposes what still remains a radically different way of thinking, a habit of living that is not in our air. In fact, Nagler's first piece of advice is to avoid the airwaves, turn off the television, opt out of the relentless normalization of violence.
We don't need the art of war applied to a peace movement. We need the art of satyagraha applied to the movement for a peaceful, just, free, and sustainable world. This means we have to stop trying to defeat the Military Industrial Complex (how's that been working out?) and start working to replace it and to convert the people who make up its parts to new behaviors that are better for them as well as for us.
It can seem out of place to shift from a discussion of the world's largest military to personal interactions. Surely giving John Kerry a complete personality transplant would leave in place corrupt elections, war profiteering, complicit media outlets, and the assumption held by legions of career bureaucrats that war is the way to peace.
No doubt, but only by learning to think and live nonviolence can we build an activist movement with the greatest potential to transform our structures of government. Nagler's examples highlight the importance of knowing what is negotiable, what should be compromised, and what must not be; what is substantive and what symbolic; when a movement is ready to escalate its nonviolence and when it is too soon or too late; and when (always?) not to tack on new demands in the middle of a campaign.
Tiananmen Square should have been abandoned and other tactics pursued, Nagler believes. Holding the square was symbolic. When protesters took over the Ecuadorean Congress in 2000 one of their leaders was elected president. Why? Nagler points out that the Congress was a place of power, not just a symbol; the activists were strong enough to take power, not just ask for it; and the occupation was part of a larger campaign that preceded and followed it.
Nagler has a lot of praise and hope for the Occupy movement, but also draws examples of failure from there. When a group of churches in one city offered to join with Occupy if everyone would stop cursing, Occupiers refused. Dumb decision. Not only is the point not to get to do every little thing we want, but we are not engaging in a struggle for power -- rather, in a learning process and a process of building relationships, even with those we are organizing to challenge -- and certainly with those who want to help us if we'll refrain from cussing. It can even be helpful, Nagler documents, to be accomodating to those we are challenging, when such steps are taken in friendship rather than subservience.
We are after the welfare of all parties, Nagler writes. Even those we want removed from office? Even those we want prosecuted for crimes? Is there restorative justice that can make an official who has launched a war see his or her removal from office and sanctioning as advantageous? Maybe. Maybe not. But seeking to remove people from office in order to uphold the rule of law and end injustices is very different from acting out of vengeance.
We should not seek out victories over others, Nager advises. But doesn't the organizing of activists require informing the deeply victory-dependent of every partial success achieved? Maybe. But a victory need not be over someone; it can be with someone. Oil barons have grandchildren who will enjoy a livable planet as much as the rest of us.
Nagler outlines obstructive and constructive actions, citing Gandhi's efforts in India and the first Intifada as examples of combining the two. The Landless Worker Movement in Brazil uses constructive nonviolence, while the Arab Spring used obstructive. Ideally, Nagler thinks, a movement should begin with constructive projects and then add obstruction. The Occupy Movement has gone in the opposite direction, developing aid for storm victims and banking victims after protests were driven out of public squares. The potential for change, Nagler believes, lies in the possibility of Occupy or another movement combining the two approaches.
Nagler's sequential steps in a nonviolent action campaign include: 1. Conflict Resolution, 2. Satyagraha, 3. The Ultimate Sacrifice.
I imagine Nagler would agree with me that what we need as much as peaceful behavior by our government is Conflict Avoidance. So much is done to generate conflicts that need not be. U.S. troops in 175 countries, and drones in some of the remaining few, are known to generate hostility; yet that hostility is used to justify the stationing of more troops. While it's important to realize we'll never rid the world of conflict, I'm sure we could come a lot closer if we tried.
But Nagler is outlining a plan for a popular campaign, not for the State Department. His three stages are a guide for how we ought to be outlining our future course of action. Step 0.5, then, is not Conflict Avoidance but Infiltration of Corporate Media or Development of Alternative Means to Communicate. Or so it occurs to me. I'll host Nagler on Talk Nation Radio soon, so send questions I should ask him to david at davidswanson dot org.
Nagler sees growing success and even greater potential for nonviolent action done wisely and strategically, and points out the extent to which violence remains the default approach of our government. And the case Nagler makes is made strong and credible by his extensive knowledge of nonviolent campaigns engaged in around the world over the past several decades. Nagler looks helpfully at successes, failures, and partial successes to draw out the lessons we need moving forward. I'm tempted to write a review of this book nearly as long as or even longer than the book itself, but believe it might be most helpful simply to say this:
Trust me. Buy this book. Carry it with you.
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Read!
By Tom Morman on May 12, 2014
I am reading this handbook in a small study group. The recommendation by the group leader was that Michael Nagler's work provides the intellectual framework for nonviolence. Another in the group called the book a powerhouse work. It offers a new paradigm with remarkable depth and insight. A very inspiring work!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Philosophy, practical knowledge, depth and insight!
By Rivera Sun on June 22, 2014
Michael Nagler's latest book, a slender, succinct volume called "The Nonviolence Handbook", flushes out some arenas of the field of nonviolence that had remained murky for me. He touches on so many aspects of this complex field, reminding us of the underlying philosophies, the unique dynamics of nonviolent struggle, some practical suggestions for engaging in nonviolent action, and much more. He writes from a lifetime engaged in nonviolence … both on the inner level, the interpersonal level, and also on the socio-political level. It is clear he is bursting with wisdom waiting to be shared. I feel honored to have received a small dose of it through reading this book!
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The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action Kindle Edition
by Michael N. Nagler (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 14 customer reviews
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Biography
Born in Brooklyn, 1937. Educated at Cornell, briefly in med school, and UC, Berkeley (with a stint in Heidelberg). Met my spiritual teacher in Berkeley in 1966, Sri Eknath Easwaran, who deepened my knowledge of and reverence for Gandhi. Moved to the ashram being set up in N. CA in 1970, and have been there ever since!
After teaching classics and comparative literature for three+ decades I shifted to the Peace and Conflict Studies Program I had founded on that campus where I taught courses in nonviolence and meditation until 2007. Then I retired from formal education to devote more time to the Metta Center for Nonviolence (mettacenter[dot]org) that I and some friends had founded in 1982. Over the years, in addition to all we do through Metta, I've done every kind of writing and speaking about nonviolence and peace and I am now (2016) working on my fourth book, tentatively called THE THIRD HARMONY, which will explore what's called the "New Story" and put nonviolence squarely in its center.
Born in Brooklyn, 1937. Educated at Cornell, briefly in med school, and UC, Berkeley (with a stint in Heidelberg). Met my spiritual teacher in Berkeley in 1966, Sri Eknath Easwaran, who deepened my knowledge of and reverence for Gandhi. Moved to the ashram being set up in N. CA in 1970, and have been there ever since!
After teaching classics and comparative literature for three+ decades I shifted to the Peace and Conflict Studies Program I had founded on that campus where I taught courses in nonviolence and meditation until 2007. Then I retired from formal education to devote more time to the Metta Center for Nonviolence (mettacenter[dot]org) that I and some friends had founded in 1982. Over the years, in addition to all we do through Metta, I've done every kind of writing and speaking about nonviolence and peace and I am now (2016) working on my fourth book, tentatively called THE THIRD HARMONY, which will explore what's called the "New Story" and put nonviolence squarely in its center.
Happy to say that my last published book, THE NONVIOLENCE HANDBOOK (Berrett-Koehler) is available in Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish among other languages.
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“Nonviolence is not the recourse of the weak but actually calls for an uncommon kind of strength; it is not a refraining from something but the engaging of a positive force,” renowned peace activist Michael Nagler writes. Here he offers a step-by-step guide to creatively using nonviolence to confront any problem and to build change movements capable of restructuring the very bedrock of society.
Nagler identifies some specific tactical mistakes made by unsuccessful nonviolent actions such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the Occupy protests and includes stories of successful nonviolent resistance from around the world, including an example from Nazi Germany. And he shows that nonviolence is more than a tactic—it is a way of living that will enrich every area of our lives.
----
See all 14 customer reviews
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book!
By Shai Ford on April 27, 2014
Michael Nagler's 'Search for a Non-Violent Future' was used in several courses that I have taken on peace and non-violence studies. And, while it is an excellent book, I found it a little lengthy and full of examples and stories moreso than practical application. This Nonviolence Handbook is exactly for what I was looking! It takes the theories and stories within Search for a Nonviolent Future and turns them into applicable steps in much shorter chapters. This book is great for the college or nonviolence training classroom!
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and thoughtful and practical presentation of nonvolence
By Timothy J. Gannon VINE VOICE on June 12, 2014
I have followed Mr. Nagler and his mentor Eknath Easwaran for many years. Nonviolence is a mental challenge for me. This brings the many strands of the spiritual dimensions of nonviolence together with practical examples of how to focus on the problem and avoid humiliation of either party. I am working to bring these concepts into my life and my thoughts. The creativity demanded is very demanding. Even for such a simple thing as helping my younger daughter resolve school conflicts and low level domestic conflict.
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wise and Practical
By Christie Billups, D.Min. on June 27, 2015
Pithy, readable and practical! A book that will definitely inform my work in launching a Peace Studies program at my institution. It could easily be used as a text or a reference. Students would get a lot out of it's practicality rooted in the wisdom of activists and academics while not getting weighed down by lengthy monologues on theory. I've recommended it to others and do so here as well.
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Michael Nagler transmits Gandhi
By D. Hazen on September 2, 2014
Michael Nagler is a student of a direct student of Gandhi. He eloquently transmits the importance of being the change we wish to see in the world, and creating constructive alternatives to the current domination system, BEFORE launching a campaign of nonviolent resistance, which is much broader and deeper than the commonly understood mechanisms of protest demonstrations which are ineffective and unsafe for the participants. This is a book about loving your enemies, and making them into your friends, so be ready for a radical challenge. I believe the message of this book is so important that I bought a box of 20 to distribute to my friends.
----
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Art of Satyagraha
By David Swanson on June 3, 2014
Michael Nagler has just published The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action, a quick book to read and a long one to digest, a book that's rich in a way that people of a very different inclination bizarrely imagine Sun Tzu's to be. That is, rather than a collection of misguided platitudes, this book proposes what still remains a radically different way of thinking, a habit of living that is not in our air. In fact, Nagler's first piece of advice is to avoid the airwaves, turn off the television, opt out of the relentless normalization of violence.
We don't need the art of war applied to a peace movement. We need the art of satyagraha applied to the movement for a peaceful, just, free, and sustainable world. This means we have to stop trying to defeat the Military Industrial Complex (how's that been working out?) and start working to replace it and to convert the people who make up its parts to new behaviors that are better for them as well as for us.
It can seem out of place to shift from a discussion of the world's largest military to personal interactions. Surely giving John Kerry a complete personality transplant would leave in place corrupt elections, war profiteering, complicit media outlets, and the assumption held by legions of career bureaucrats that war is the way to peace.
No doubt, but only by learning to think and live nonviolence can we build an activist movement with the greatest potential to transform our structures of government. Nagler's examples highlight the importance of knowing what is negotiable, what should be compromised, and what must not be; what is substantive and what symbolic; when a movement is ready to escalate its nonviolence and when it is too soon or too late; and when (always?) not to tack on new demands in the middle of a campaign.
Tiananmen Square should have been abandoned and other tactics pursued, Nagler believes. Holding the square was symbolic. When protesters took over the Ecuadorean Congress in 2000 one of their leaders was elected president. Why? Nagler points out that the Congress was a place of power, not just a symbol; the activists were strong enough to take power, not just ask for it; and the occupation was part of a larger campaign that preceded and followed it.
Nagler has a lot of praise and hope for the Occupy movement, but also draws examples of failure from there. When a group of churches in one city offered to join with Occupy if everyone would stop cursing, Occupiers refused. Dumb decision. Not only is the point not to get to do every little thing we want, but we are not engaging in a struggle for power -- rather, in a learning process and a process of building relationships, even with those we are organizing to challenge -- and certainly with those who want to help us if we'll refrain from cussing. It can even be helpful, Nagler documents, to be accomodating to those we are challenging, when such steps are taken in friendship rather than subservience.
We are after the welfare of all parties, Nagler writes. Even those we want removed from office? Even those we want prosecuted for crimes? Is there restorative justice that can make an official who has launched a war see his or her removal from office and sanctioning as advantageous? Maybe. Maybe not. But seeking to remove people from office in order to uphold the rule of law and end injustices is very different from acting out of vengeance.
We should not seek out victories over others, Nager advises. But doesn't the organizing of activists require informing the deeply victory-dependent of every partial success achieved? Maybe. But a victory need not be over someone; it can be with someone. Oil barons have grandchildren who will enjoy a livable planet as much as the rest of us.
Nagler outlines obstructive and constructive actions, citing Gandhi's efforts in India and the first Intifada as examples of combining the two. The Landless Worker Movement in Brazil uses constructive nonviolence, while the Arab Spring used obstructive. Ideally, Nagler thinks, a movement should begin with constructive projects and then add obstruction. The Occupy Movement has gone in the opposite direction, developing aid for storm victims and banking victims after protests were driven out of public squares. The potential for change, Nagler believes, lies in the possibility of Occupy or another movement combining the two approaches.
Nagler's sequential steps in a nonviolent action campaign include: 1. Conflict Resolution, 2. Satyagraha, 3. The Ultimate Sacrifice.
I imagine Nagler would agree with me that what we need as much as peaceful behavior by our government is Conflict Avoidance. So much is done to generate conflicts that need not be. U.S. troops in 175 countries, and drones in some of the remaining few, are known to generate hostility; yet that hostility is used to justify the stationing of more troops. While it's important to realize we'll never rid the world of conflict, I'm sure we could come a lot closer if we tried.
But Nagler is outlining a plan for a popular campaign, not for the State Department. His three stages are a guide for how we ought to be outlining our future course of action. Step 0.5, then, is not Conflict Avoidance but Infiltration of Corporate Media or Development of Alternative Means to Communicate. Or so it occurs to me. I'll host Nagler on Talk Nation Radio soon, so send questions I should ask him to david at davidswanson dot org.
Nagler sees growing success and even greater potential for nonviolent action done wisely and strategically, and points out the extent to which violence remains the default approach of our government. And the case Nagler makes is made strong and credible by his extensive knowledge of nonviolent campaigns engaged in around the world over the past several decades. Nagler looks helpfully at successes, failures, and partial successes to draw out the lessons we need moving forward. I'm tempted to write a review of this book nearly as long as or even longer than the book itself, but believe it might be most helpful simply to say this:
Trust me. Buy this book. Carry it with you.
----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Read!
By Tom Morman on May 12, 2014
I am reading this handbook in a small study group. The recommendation by the group leader was that Michael Nagler's work provides the intellectual framework for nonviolence. Another in the group called the book a powerhouse work. It offers a new paradigm with remarkable depth and insight. A very inspiring work!
-----
5.0 out of 5 stars
Philosophy, practical knowledge, depth and insight!
By Rivera Sun on June 22, 2014
Michael Nagler's latest book, a slender, succinct volume called "The Nonviolence Handbook", flushes out some arenas of the field of nonviolence that had remained murky for me. He touches on so many aspects of this complex field, reminding us of the underlying philosophies, the unique dynamics of nonviolent struggle, some practical suggestions for engaging in nonviolent action, and much more. He writes from a lifetime engaged in nonviolence … both on the inner level, the interpersonal level, and also on the socio-political level. It is clear he is bursting with wisdom waiting to be shared. I feel honored to have received a small dose of it through reading this book!
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