Blueprint for revolution

how to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other nonviolent techniques to galvanize communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world

282 pages

English language

Published March 3, 2015

ISBN:
978-0-8129-9530-5
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OCLC Number:
878500820

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4 stars (2 reviews)

"In Blueprint for Revolution, Srdja Popovic outlines his philosophy for implementing peaceful world change and provides a model for activists everywhere through stories of his own experience toppling dictatorships (peacefully) and of smaller examples of social change (like Occupy Wall Street or fighting for gay rights or zoning changes). Through examples of using laughter and music (e.g., Pussy Riot) to disarm the opposition and gather supporters, to staging a protest of Lego Men in Siberia (when flesh-and-blood people would have been shot), to a boycott of Cottage cheese in Israel to challenge price inflation while organizing around rice pudding to overthrow the dictator of the Maldives, Popovic uses true and sometimes outrageously clever examples of the ways in which non-violent resistance has achieved its means. Popovic argues in favor of non-violent resistance not for ideological reasons (as persuasive as those are) but because non-violence actually works better than violence. An …

1 edition

Readable, relatable and actionable

4 stars

I started this while travelling and finished it in a couple days.

It's about Otpor! - the nonviolent and creative movement that helped topple the dictatorship of Milosevic in Serbia in the early 2000s (and NATO bombing Belgrade...)

But it's also about many other movements and actions across the world in the 20th century, with many events and interesting tactics I'd never heard of. Popovic makes analysis across these movements and gives ~10 broad advices.

The writing does at times get a bit annoying: he makes it sound like Otpor! and the Serbs figured everything out and he seems to like throwing leftists under the bus.

Nevertheless I think he makes a very good case for nonviolence and offers pragmatic advice: find points, however small, which 99% percent of population support (or aren't against), creatively campaign to win those & use the momentum and credibility from that to go on …

avatar for DerekCaelin@bookwyrm.social

rated it

4 stars

Subjects

  • Nonviolence
  • Protest movements
  • Revolutions
  • Civil disobedience
  • Political aspects
  • Philosophy
  • Pacifism