How Nonviolence Protects the State

Paperback, 128 pages

Published Aug. 21, 2018 by Detritus Books.

ISBN:
978-1-948501-01-9
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3 stars (1 review)

4 editions

Interesting, but too polemic and disingenuous

3 stars

I would not recommend this book to people who want to understand the split between advocates for “nonviolence” and advocates for diversity of tactics, because the author sometimes disingenuously puts things in people's mouths. It is however helpful as a reference in arguments, since it contains a lot of recent-historical (USA-centric) examples.

In the first chapters the author attacks, often polemically, “nonviolent” tactics. Some of the convictions he presents as coming from advocates of “nonviolence” are obviously constructed.¹ In the last chapter the author advocates for organizing in small groups and forming temporary alliances and outlines his views on how violence could be used effectively.

In the examples, the definitions of violence of the discussed movements are used (but not always stated), so the definition is constantly changing, which did confuse me at times. Most discussed movements seem to define property destruction as violence. I don't know if he hand-picked …