Civil Resistance

by Michael Randle

Published 11 April 1994
The methods of civil resistance can be divided into three broad categories - non-violent protest and persuasion, non-co-operation (economic, social and political), and non-violent intervention. From Tolstoy and Thoreau to Gandhi and poll-tax non-payers, individuals have exercised their right to defy what they regard as unjust laws. This book surveys this historical movement, and brings it up-to-date by analyzing the role of peaceable, but massive civil disobedience in bringing down the derelict regimes of Communist Europe in 1989. Michael Randle also looks at how, in the age of global telecommunications and computerized commerce, civil disobedience has developed electronic possibilities.