Policy & Outreach > Current Projects and Publications > Waging Nonviolent Struggle:
Twentieth Century Practice and Twenty-first Century Potential
by Gene Sharp > Advance praise for Waging Nonviolent Struggle by Gene Sharp

Advance praise for Waging Nonviolent Struggle by Gene Sharp

"This book is a masterpiece. Its content is going to be very useful not only to those who study nonviolent struggle but also to those in need, nonviolent activists of pro-democratic movements in the world`s great battlefields.
With Waging Nonviolent Struggle, Dr. Gene Sharp adds new page in his brilliant biography—making a huge step towards a practical approach in strategic nonviolent struggle. As a practitioner, trainer and consultant I am once again proud that I had the opportunity to learn from Gene, and transfer his precious knowledge worldwide."
- Srdja Popovic, Co-founder
Serbian democracy movement Otpor

"Gene Sharp is one of the most imaginative strategic thinkers of our time. His life career, devoted to the development of concepts involved in nonviolent struggle, has made enormous strides in alerting world policy makers to the possibilities and risks of the phenomena. In arenas from the U.S. Army War College to defense and foreign ministries around the world, he has persuasively lectured, argued, and explained his views. Waging Nonviolent Struggle is in many ways a capstone to his mountainous works: comprehensive, readable and rationally presented. This volume will inform the skeptical and entice those capable of thinking beyond the box. We are all the richer for its publication."
- Major General Edward B. Atkeson, U.S. Army (Ret.), PhD
Senior Fellow, Institute of Land Warfare
Association of the U.S. Army

“Waging Nonviolent Struggle is a powerful encyclopedia of major campaigns that adhere to the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. This book should be used as a major text for those individuals, groups, and even nations that aspire to the way of nonviolence.”
- U.S. Congressman John Lewis

"Waging Nonviolent Struggle is a must read book for policymakers and practitioners who in the aftermath of the peaceful democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia are finally asking "how did it happen?" As Dr. Sharp reminds us throughout, conducting effective nonviolent struggle is not magic, it is the result of careful planning and strategic thinking. He takes us through the essential elements of nonviolent struggle and strategy, illustrated by a number of case studies—some familiar, others never analyzed before. While no struggle is the same, and there is no simple formula for success, Dr. Sharp convincingly argues that movements achieve their objectives when they are grounded in a clear-headed assessment of the existing allocation of power in a society, and a strategic, disciplined use of a set of tactics and actions that effectively shifts that power away from those who hold it towards the unarmed movement pushing for change."
- Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director
Freedom House

"For more than thirty years, Gene Sharp has been has been in the top rank of the world’s scholars of nonviolence—researching, investigating, cataloguing, classifying, and reflecting upon the nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century. In Waging Nonviolent Struggle he has distilled much of what he has learned, in the form of case histories, practical advice, and reflection to produce a work of the greatest value."
- Jonathan Schell
Peace & Disarmament Correspondent
The Nation

"... a remarkably timely book.... Sharp makes it clear that strategic nonviolence is a critical tool in the waging of today's struggles, from dismantling dictatorships and blocking coups d'état to defense against foreign aggression....
Every social activist should have a copy! To say nothing of every scholar in the fields of conflict resolution and social change. Theory and practice are well-matched."
- Elise Boulding
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Dartmouth College
Former Secretary General, International Peace Research Association