Author: Mark Juergensmeyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 174
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195667468
Description
Mark Juergensmeyer shows how to redirect the focus of a fight from persons to principles, determine the truth of one's position in an argument, cope with a recalcitrant opponent, use the power of noncooperation, and know when a conflict is truly resolved. Dispelling misconceptions, the author stresses that Gandhi was a resistance fighter who employed specific tactical approaches- approaches that are dynamic, tough-minded, courageous, life-affirming, and effective.
Gandhi's Way also presents a selection of hypothetical conversation in the mind that place Gandhi in probing dialogue with three of the most formidable exemplars of Western social thought: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Reinhold Niebuhr. In these imaginary debates, Juergensmeyer challenges and clarifies Gandhi's thinking on underlying issues of violence, anger, and love. In a final, brilliantly conceived section, he offers a Gandhian critique of Gandhi by confronting the man with the ideal and presents solutions to some of the difficulties in Gandhian theory.
This book is important for all policy-makers, strategists, bureaucrats, conflict mediators, as also students and scholars of politics, sociology, psychology, and history. In addition it will be of interest to all practitioners of Gandhian ideals, his followers as also general readers.
REVIEWS
Juergensmeyer's book is something of a Gandhian tour de force - a careful analysis and series of applications of Gandhi's concepts of satyagraha by one of America's Gandhi scholars to everyday situations with which most Western readers are familiar.
-Joe Elder,. Professor, University of Wisconsin
This is a manual of instruction in the best sense: a popular reassessment of the activist use of satyagraha in conflict resolution that has depth and a true appreciation for the ethical subtleties of dialectical struggles, and for the multiple dimensions of passive resistance.
-Donald Johnson, University of Minnesota
A fascinating, thought-provoking, helpful and heartening book.
-Marjorie Lewellyn Marks, Los Angeles Times
A crisply written, cogently argued little manual exploring the practical implications of satyagraha (truth force).
-Kirkus Reviews
This is a manual of instruction in the best sense: a popular reassessment of the activist use of satyagraha in conflict resolution that has depth and a true appreciation for the ethical subtleties of dialectical struggles, and for the multiple dimensions of passive resistance.
-Library Journal
Contents
PREFACE
SECATION I: THE GANDHIAN FIGHT
Flight a Gandhian Fight
Why fight at All?
How Do You Know When You're Right?
Violence: The Breakdown of a Fight
What to Do with a Recalcitrant Opponent
The Weapon: The Goal Itself
The Power of Noncooperatio