The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action
By Michael N. Nagler

This practical handbook is a brief guide to the core principles and strategies at the heart of nonviolent resistance.  Michael Nagler distills the guiding principles of nonviolence into a straightforward, practical, and short handbook that will help anyone in a nonviolent movement work more safely and effectively towards achieving social change.

“Nonviolence is not the recourse of the weak but actually calls for an uncommon kind of strength; it is not a refraining from something but the engaging of a positive force,” renowned peace activist Michael Nagler writes. Here he offers a step-by-step guide to creatively using nonviolence to confront any problem and to build change movements capable of restructuring the very bedrock of society.

Nagler identifies some specific tactical mistakes made by unsuccessful nonviolent actions such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the Occupy protests and includes stories of successful nonviolent resistance from around the world, including an example from Nazi Germany. And he shows that nonviolence is more than a tactic―it is a way of living that will enrich every area of our lives.

Article on Waging Nonviolence by Pace e Bene’s Ken Butigan.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, March 2014.
84 Pages

About Michael Nagler
Founder and president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence. He cofounded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley, where he is professor emeritus of classics and comparative literature.