The Unconquerable World : Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People - Softcover

Jonathan Schell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141016868 ISBN 13: 9780141016863

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2005

Synopsis

Throughout history civilization has been shaped by war. Now, after a century of unprecedented devastation, it seems humankind is preparing to embark on another cycle of violence. Are we condemned to be in a state of perpetual warfare? In this lucid, impassioned, provocative book Schell shows how the underlying dynamics of history have often been shaped not by military actions, but by battles for the hearts and minds of the people. His close re-examinations of the British, French and Russian revolutions, the collapse of Soviet power in eastern Europe in 1989, the war in Vietnam and other key moments in history illustrate how all these events can be understood in a new way when viewed through the prism of non-violence. Now that recent events in Iraq have borne out the force of Schell's arguments - that it is not always the military battles that matter most - this inspiring book shows that there is, and always has been, an alternative to war as a way of directing human society.

About this title

About the Author

Author of several works, including The Time of Illusion, The Fate of the Earth, and The Village of Ben Suc, Jonathan Schell has been a contributor to The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs, and has taught at Wesleyan, Princeton, and Emory, among other universities. Currently a Visiting Professor at Yale and the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute, he lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141016868
• ISBN 13: 9780141016863
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448