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Powerful Peacemaking: A Strategy For A Living Revolution

George Lakey

3.89 · Rating details · 19 ratings · 4 reviews

Gandhi taught that nonviolence is all-pervasive. A commitment to nonviolence is more than acting nonviolently in any given conflict; it's also a commitment to the creation of a nonviolent society. A theory of nonviolent revolution is evolving that encompasses the broad institutional, economic, and social changes needed to dismantle the war system on which our society is ...more

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Published June 1995 by New Society Publishers (first published June 1st 1987)

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Sep 14, 2014 Stephen Caines rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I only recently discovered this book. I was really impressed with it, thought it was pertinent, and so wrote a review of it in hopes others might read it. The full book review can be found here:

http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/blog/stev...

In large part drawing upon past domestic and international precedents of social movements, and analyzing their successes and failures, Lakey, in the book, attempts to outline a strategy for democratic revolutionary transformation of the United States. Mainly ...more

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Jun 06, 2017 Rhiannon Grant rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: quakerism

It's hard to know how to review a book which was published in 1973 and which relies so heavily on 'recent' events. Some of the points made in this book seem merely obvious; indeed, it's depressing that they were obvious enough to be baldly stated in 1973 and yet most of society is ignoring them now - the "ecological crisis", as Lakey calls it here, is the big one. Others read differently when you know 'what happened next' - stories about China and Russia from 1973 often sound rather different It's hard to know how to review a book which was published in 1973 and which relies so heavily on 'recent' events. Some of the points made in this book seem merely obvious; indeed, it's depressing that they were obvious enough to be baldly stated in 1973 and yet most of society is ignoring them now - the "ecological crisis", as Lakey calls it here, is the big one. Others read differently when you know 'what happened next' - stories about China and Russia from 1973 often sound rather different now. (Usually, they seem much less like the hopeful, positive examples this book would have them be.) There are also places where the changing world seems like a glaring omission. The talk about "street-speaking" (getting on your soap box) can hardly sound the same in a world with social media (and in which online shopping is changing the high street). Similarly, discussions of world powers today may use similar discourse, but involves different players, most notably the changing political landscape of the Middle East and surrounding area.

These limitations aside, the stories Lakey offers are often interesting and inspiring. (My favourite line in the book, page 107: "In a series of confrontations twenty-nine demonstrators and several pine trees were arrested.") Some of the suggestions he makes at the end of the book, with suitable technological adjustments, could well be worth while. In particular, I like the focus on noncooperation. It might be worth asking: what do we want to refuse to cooperate with? how are we cooperating now with practices which are damaging to our society and the earth, and how can we stop cooperating? Lakey makes a convincing case that noncooperation - which can take the form of a strike or refusal, but might also be a boycott, or a sit-in, or many other forms of action - is both simple and worthwhile. He didn't quite convince me that it would lead to a revolution (he's obviously been trying to create a revolution since the 1960s and it hasn't taken yet), but he does offer enough examples to point in the direction of useful reform through these methods. ...more

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Dec 26, 2014 Glen Gersmehl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

classic manual on social change

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Jan 08, 2011 Peggy rated it liked it

Recommends it for: peaceful social activist types

Recommended to Peggy by: author himself / signed copy

Shelves: nonfiction, quaker, cant-finish

I'm sure this is probably a great book for someone who can focus better than I.

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About George Lakey

George Lakey

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George Lakey, 67, is the director of Training for Change. He began his career as a trainer at the Martin Luther King School for Social Change, and has since gone on to lead over 1000 workshops on five continents. He has run trainings for coal miners, therapists, homeless people, prisoners, Russian lesbians and gays, Sri Lankan monks, Burmese guerrilla soldiers, striking steel workers, South George Lakey, 67, is the director of Training for Change. He began his career as a trainer at the Martin Luther King School for Social Change, and has since gone on to lead over 1000 workshops on five continents. He has run trainings for coal miners, therapists, homeless people, prisoners, Russian lesbians and gays, Sri Lankan monks, Burmese guerrilla soldiers, striking steel workers, South African activists, and others. Trained as a sociologist, he has taught at the college and graduate level and is the author of six books. He consults regularly with a wide range of nonprofit groups.

George has given leadership to a number of social change movements. In late 1989 he led a team of Westerners in Sri Lanka who for 24 hours a day accompanied human-rights activists at risk of assassination. He has done neighborhood organizing, once successfully preventing tree-cutting and another time creating a neighborhood festival to celebrate ethnic diversity. He co-founded the Movement for a New Society, which for nearly 20 years specialized in organizational innovation. He founded and directed the Philadelphia Jobs with Peace Campaign, a coalition of labor, civil rights, poverty and peace groups. He was a designer of and staffed the Campaign to Stop the B-1 Bomber and Promote Peace Conversion, which mobilized sufficiently to gain cancellation of the B-1 in 1977 and raise the visibility of the concept of economic conversion. He was director of A Quaker Action Group when it assisted Puerto Rican nationalists in stopping the U.S. Navy from using the inhabited island of Culebra for target practice. He was also a founder of Men Against Patriarchy, which organized pioneering projects for the early men's anti-sexism movement of the mid-'70s.

George has taught peace studies at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn he brought the program from 11 students in one class to 105 in three sections; the administration lauded the program for the way it reached out to students of color. He also created a group dynamics lab at Penn for training men in new leadership styles under a federal grant for feminist education.

George's sixth book is on organizational development: "Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times" (1996). He is author or co-author of five previous books: "A Manual for Direct Action" (often called the "Bible" of direct action by Southern civil-rights activists of the '60s); "In Place of War, Moving toward a New Society"; "No Turning Back: Lesbian and Gay Liberation for the '80s"; and "Powerful Peacemaking: A Strategy for a Living Revolution." His publications have been translated into Swedish, German, Danish, French, Japanese and Thai.

On the personal side, George is a Quaker, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather in an interracial family. He received the national Giraffe Award (1992) for "sticking his neck out for the common good," and the Ashley Montague Peace Award (1998) from the International Conference on Conflict Resolution. ...more