The book focuses on use of non-violent resistance to reform repressive regimes into democratic governments. I found it interesting that the book is a darling of Leftist and progressive thinkers -- I guess because of its emphasis on techniques of bringing about revolution -- but the content is decidedly favorable to individual freedom and American traditions of representative government. Put another way, American "conservatives" (who are, for the most part, actually classical liberals) can learn a lot from this book. The author's comment that the instruments of freedom are private associations, beginning with the family and including everything from churches to garden clubs to literary societies, was -- by American standards -- distinctly conservative. American constitutional traditions derived directly from the experience of repression and were designed to prevent it, so it's no surprise that a key element of such prevention (or reformation, in the case of resistance to repression) is the private association of citizens, organizing and speaking freely.
The author also wisely observes that violence tends to beget violence, and repressive governments yearn for any justification to unleash the full brutality of their police and military forces upon dissenters. Mass arrests and killings of "violent revolutionaries" are easy to justify -- of peaceful protestors, not so much. Also, violent revolutions tend to train citizens in continuing the deadly cycle of more of the same.
If the book fails at any point, it is on the question of how to build an enduring free and representative government after the revolution. The author does address this, but very lightly. (For example, if any one factor has proved pivotal in revolutionary cycles throughout human history, it is the military. The authors of the American Constitution dealt with this issue by initially avoiding a standing army and making the military consist of individual state militias, populated by private, and privately armed, citizens. The theory was that the military won't become a tool of ambitious politicians to overthrow representative government, if the people themselves ARE the military. This has obviously changed a bit over the years -- we now have not only state militias and National Guard, but also a large standing military, while still retaining an armed-to-the-teeth public.) This, however, was never the author's goal in writing this particular book, which is a handbook on peaceful regime change toward democracy, not a treatise on stable and lasting democratic government.
Well worth the read.
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If I had to reduce my library down to only two or three books, I would take “Dracula” and “Phantom of the Opera” with me. I would now include “From Dictatorship to Democracy” in that small library.For anyone interested in negotiations, conflict mediation, power dynamics, peaceful resistance, or anything else along those lines, this book is very much a must-have. It reads well, it is concise, and Gene Sharp is arguably the foremost scholar with regards to nonviolent resistance and struggle. I have one other book of his, “Waging Nonviolent Resistance,” and I have always had a hard time getting through that book on a whole. If you read this book before reading waging nonviolence struggle, it’s much easier to grasp the importance of each of the individual chapters and stories that is related.For anyone who wants to be prepared for Tierney and dictatorship, and who counts themselves as an activist or at least a committed pacifist (like myself), “ from dictatorships democracy“ is essential for your library.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2021
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Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2021
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If I had to reduce my library down to only two or three books, I would take “Dracula” and “Phantom of the Opera” with me. I would now include “From Dictatorship to Democracy” in that small library.
For anyone interested in negotiations, conflict mediation, power dynamics, peaceful resistance, or anything else along those lines, this book is very much a must-have. It reads well, it is concise, and Gene Sharp is arguably the foremost scholar with regards to nonviolent resistance and struggle. I have one other book of his, “Waging Nonviolent Resistance,” and I have always had a hard time getting through that book on a whole. If you read this book before reading waging nonviolence struggle, it’s much easier to grasp the importance of each of the individual chapters and stories that is related.
For anyone who wants to be prepared for Tierney and dictatorship, and who counts themselves as an activist or at least a committed pacifist (like myself), “ from dictatorships democracy“ is essential for your library.
For anyone interested in negotiations, conflict mediation, power dynamics, peaceful resistance, or anything else along those lines, this book is very much a must-have. It reads well, it is concise, and Gene Sharp is arguably the foremost scholar with regards to nonviolent resistance and struggle. I have one other book of his, “Waging Nonviolent Resistance,” and I have always had a hard time getting through that book on a whole. If you read this book before reading waging nonviolence struggle, it’s much easier to grasp the importance of each of the individual chapters and stories that is related.
For anyone who wants to be prepared for Tierney and dictatorship, and who counts themselves as an activist or at least a committed pacifist (like myself), “ from dictatorships democracy“ is essential for your library.
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Stewart Houston
Superficial nonsense for the naive.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 29, 2018Verified Purchase
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