This comprehensive guide to research, sources, and theories about nonviolent action as a technique of struggle in social and political conficts discusses the methods and techniques used by groups in various encounters. Although violence and its causes have received a great deal of attention, nonviolent action has not received its due as an international phenomenon with a long history. An introduction that explains the theories and research used in the study provides a practical guide to this essential bibliography of English-language sources. The first part of the book covers case-study materials divided by region and subdivided by country. Within each country, materials are arranged chronologically and topically. The second major part examines the methods and theory of nonviolent action, principled nonviolence, and several closely related areas in social science, such as conflict analysis and social movements. The book is indexed by author and subject.

In Recovering Solidarity, Gerald J. Beyer provides a contextualized theological and ethical treatment of the idea of solidarity. He focuses particularly on the Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s and the ways in which that movement originally embodied but, during the country's transformation to a capitalist democratic society, soon abandoned this important aspect of the Catholic social tradition. Using Poland as a case study, Beyer explores the obstacles to promoting an ethic of solidarity in contemporary capitalist societies and attempts to demonstrate how the moral revolution of the early Solidarity movement can be revived, both in its country of origin and around the world. Recovering Solidarity is widely interdisciplinary, utilizing Catholic social tradition, philosophical ethics, developmental economics, poverty research, gender studies, and sociology. It will appeal to those interested in the problems of poverty and justice. "Recovering Solidarity raises an eloquent, much needed challenge for all nations today, both developed and developing. Beyer paints a poignant picture of how the inspiring movement that brought freedom to Poland died at the hands of supporters of unlimited market freedom. Solidarity and participation remain essential ethical supports for true freedom, and will be indispensable to addressing the new poverty in Poland today. Required reading for all concerned with the role of the market throughout the post-1989 world." --David Hollenbach, S.J., Boston College "Recovering Solidarity uses a multidisciplinary approach to probe Poland's resistance movement for a deeper understanding of the potential of solidarity in modern society. This book shines a light on the contradictions of the phenomenon--both in our understanding of what it means to act 'in solidarity' and in the development of Poland's social movement. Beyer's sophisticated and subtle treatment of the dimensions of poverty in contemporary Poland helps the reader understand its broader implications." -- Maryjane Osa, Northwestern University "This volume is enormously valuable in the classroom. No other book grounds a theological and ethical discussion of solidarity in the lived history of the Polish Solidarity movement, a history that includes the collision of the ideals of solidarity with the neoliberal economic programs enacted by the Solidarnosc government when it came to power. The book leaves students facing Poland's stark problem, and our own: how to act upon solidarity in an economy that systematically obscures our mutual interdependence and the common good." --Vincent J. Miller, University of Dayton

In July 1980, two weeks before the Gdansk shipyard strikes, Roman Laba arrived in Poland as an American graduate student. He stayed there for almost two and a half years before he was arrested and expelled from the country for "activities noxious to the interests of the Polish state." Laba had set himself the ambitious task of documenting the history of Poland's free trade union. Martial law was in force for the last year of his stay, but even during that time he continued his rescue of the unique historical materials that contribute so much to Roots of Solidarity. The book uses this hard-earned information to challenge the commonly accepted view of the Polish intelligentsia as the driving force behind Solidarity and to demonstrate that the roots of the movement go back a decade earlier than the 1980 strikes. Laba presents compelling evidence that Solidarity emerged directly from the activities of workers in the 1970s along the Baltic coast. It was not the intellectual elite but these workers, independent of and unknown to the rest of Poland, who created three crucial strategies for struggle against oppression: the sit-down strike, the interfactory strike committee, and the demand for free trade unions independent of the party state. This concise and provocative work is divided into two parts. The first is a narrative of the creation of Solidarity. The second shows how workers' resistance to the Leninist state gradually generated new forms of democratic organizations and politics. Laba criticizes elitist ways of understanding social movements and also presents an unusual analysis of Solidarity's ritual symbolism. In addition, new evidence transforms our understanding of the role of the police and the army in a one-party state. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.