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

Schell, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805044574 ISBN 13: 9780805044577

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 2004

Synopsis

"This book mounts perhaps the most impressive argument ever made that there exists a viable and desirable alternative to the continued reliance on war." -The New York Times

At times of global crisis, Jonathan Schell's writings have offered important alternatives to conventional thinking. Now, as conflict escalates around the world, Schell gives us an impassioned, provocative book that points the way out of the unparalleled devastation of the twentieth century toward another, more peaceful path.

Tracing the expansion of violence to its culmination in nuclear stalemate, Schell uncovers a simultaneous but little-noted history of nonviolent action at every level of political life. His investigation ranges from the revolutions of America, France, and Russia, to the people's wars of China and Vietnam, to the great nonviolent events of modern times-including Gandhi's independence movement in India and the explosion of civic activity that brought about the surprising collapse of the Soviet Union.

Suggesting foundations of an entirely new kind on which to construct an enduring peace, The Unconquerable World is a bold book of sweeping significance.

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan Schell, author of The Unconquerable World and The Fate of the Earth among many other titles, is the Nation Institute’s Harold Willens Peace Fellow. His “Letter from Ground Zero” column appears in The Nation regularly. He also writes for Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, and Tomdispatch.com. He is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

Reviews

At the outset of this lucid survey of alternatives to warfare, the author disavows the label "pacifist": he is not opposed to the use of force, but he believes that it has become an ineffective tool for achieving political ends. On this pragmatic basis, Schell builds a case for civil noncoöperation, which he argues has long played a crucial role in deciding otherwise bloody conflicts (among them the American, French, and Russian Revolutions). Showing how nonviolent action proved successful in ending apartheid in South Africa and in dismantling the Soviet bloc, Schell writes with discipline and urgency. It's disappointing, then, that, once he has persuaded us of the need for peaceful solutions, those he offers—such as shared sovereignty—seem disconnected from the realities of politics today.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Unconquerable World

Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the PeopleBy Jonathan Schell

Owl Books (NY)

Copyright © 2004 Jonathan Schell
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780805044577
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.




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Edition details

• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805044574
• ISBN 13: 9780805044577
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448