Book cover of Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Book description

The conventional history of nations, even continents, is a history of warfare. According to this view, all the important ideas and significant changes of humankind were put forward in an effort to win one violent bloody conflict or another. This approach to history is only one of many examples of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Nonviolence as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The author is perhaps best known as an instigator of the “microhistory” field of study (of which I’m an avid fan and sometime practitioner). But he’s also a chronicler of protest, including one book on the worldwide demonstrations of 1968 and another, Ready for a Brand New Beat, that notes the civil rights impact of Martha and the Vandellas’ "Dancing in the Street". I’ve often felt that I was born late, just missing so many of the cultural convulsions that have informed my writing. With Non-Violence (2006) Kurlansky gives us a historical foundation for the anti-war movement of…

From James' list on protest movements.

If you love Nonviolence...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman by Alexis Krasilovsky,

Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.

A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…

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Dark Fae Outcast by Autumn M. Birt,

Trapped in our world, the fae are dying from drugs, contaminants, and hopelessness. Kicked out of the dark fae court for tainting his body and magic, Riasg only wants one thing: to die a bit faster. It’s already the end of his world, after all.

But while scoring his last…

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