A Dissenter’s Legacy: How to Win Without Violence

Tina Rosenberg in the New York Times:

Gene Sharp died last week. What Sun Tzu and Clausewitz were to war, Sharp, who was 90, was to nonviolent struggle — strategist, philosopher, guru. An American academic who worked from his modest Boston home, Sharp studied and cataloged examples of nonviolent resistance, looking at why they succeeded or failed.

His most influential work was “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a pamphlet written for Burma’s opposition in 1993. It has been translated into dozens of languages — often clandestinely — and became a handbook for civic resistance movements around the world. (Much of Sharp’s writing is available free on the website of his organization, the Albert Einstein Institute.)

Sharp is best known as a strategist for movements in the most dire circumstances — those trying to create political change when there is no institutional path. But his ideas have shaped civic protest movements in the United States and other democracies, and they contain some surprising advice for the resistance to President Trump.

First, here’s a brief summary of what Sharp taught the world…

More here.