Peter Gelderloos

How nonviolence protects the state

This book takes examples from around the world, picking through history and anthropology, showing that people have, in different ways and at different times, demonstrated mutual aid, self-organization, autonomy, horizontal decision making, and so forth--the principles that anarchy is founded on--regardless of whether they called themselves anarchists or not. Too well documented to be strictly mythology, and too expansive to be strictly anthropology, this is an inspiring answer to the people who say that anarchists are utopian: a point-by-point introduction to how anarchy can and has actually worked.

Examples of Anarchist Ideas in Practice

Anarchy Works

From the Arab Spring to the plaza occupation movement in Spain, the student movement in the UK and Occupy in the US, many new social movements have started peacefully, only to adopt a diversity of tactics as they grew in strength and collective experiences. The last ten years have revealed more clearly than ever the role of nonviolence. Propped up by the media, funded by the government, and managed by NGOs, nonviolent campaigns around the world have helped oppressive regimes change their masks, and have helped police to limit the growth of rebellious social movements...The Failure of Nonviolence examines most of the major social upheavals since the end of the Cold War to establish what nonviolence can accomplish, and what a diverse, unruly, non-pacified movement can accomplish. Focusing especially on the Arab Spring, Occupy, and the recent social upheavals in Europe, this book discusses how movements for social change can win ground and open the spaces necessary to plant the seeds of a new world.

from the Arab Spring to Occupy

The failure of nonviolence

As the climate crisis worsens, we must look to revolutionary strategy for justice

Strategies of Ecological Revolution from Below

The Solutions Are Already Here

This quick-and-easy facilitator's guide to consensus decision making supposes no prior experience on the part of the reader and breaks the consensus process down logically in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step manner. A highly structured format allows the guide to serve not only as a how-to for the uninitiated, but also as a reference manual for those already familiar with the consensus process. While intended primarily for grassroots political and environmental groups, this handbook can be used in academia, in the corporate world, and by anyone who wants to cooperate with consensus.

A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social and Environmental Groups

Consensus

Where did the state come from? Where is it going? This study in politogenesis shakes up the status quo. "Worshiping Power" cuts through inadequate theories of early state formation to offer a new analysis of the roles that kinship, religious practice, and commerce have played in stifling self-organization. Gelderloos s partisan approach to human social complexity is highly innovative, yet comprehensible to the layperson. A formidable assault on a social institution whose contemporary ubiquity renders it almost invisible. Peter Gelderloos is an anarchist writer originally from Virginia. He is author of "How Nonviolence Protects the State," "Consensus," and "Anarchy Works ." "

An Anarchist View of Early State Formation

Worshiping Power

Solutions Are Already Here

A short, powerful book that will fly off the shelves and through the windows.

How Nonviolence Protects the State

This book takes examples from around the world, picking through history and anthropology, showing that people have, in different ways and at different times, demonstrated mutual aid, self-organization, autonomy, horizontal decision making, and so forth--the principles that anarchy is founded on--regardless of whether they called themselves anarchists or not. Too well documented to be strictly mythology, and too generalized to be strictly anthropology, this is an inspiring answer to the people who say that anarchists are utopian: a point-by-point introduction to how anarchy can and has actually worked.

"As the climate crisis worsens, we must look to revolutionary strategy for justice." -- publishers website, February 24, 2022.

Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below

The Solutions are Already Here

the difference between anarchy and the academy revolutionary action: "until now", intellectuals and power

Academy vs. activism, theory vs. practice

In the years since the end of the Cold War many new social movements have started peacefully, only to adopt a diversity of tactics as they grew in strength and collective experiences. The last ten years have revealed more clearly than ever the role of nonviolence. Propped up by the media, funded by the government, and managed by NGOs, nonviolent campaigns around the world have helped oppressive regimes change their masks, and have helped police to limit the growth of rebellious social movements. Repeatedly losing the debate within the movements themselves, proponents of nonviolence have increasingly turned to the mainstream media and to government and institutional funding to drown out critical voices. The Failure of Nonviolence examines most of the major social upheavals following the Cold War to reveal the limits of nonviolence and uncover what a diverse, unruly, non-pacified movement can accomplish. Critical of how a diversity of tactics has functioned so far, this book discusses how movements for social change can win ground and open the spaces necessary to plant the seeds of a new world.

The Failure of Nonviolence

Essay in zine form by Genderloos, framing the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the militarized police response to subsequent protests as evidence of the police as an institutional instrument of state control of disempowered communities. Genderloos discusses protest tactics and questions the historical narrative of nonviolence in the Civil Rights era before positing other possibilities for conflict resolution in a world without police.

Peter Gelderloos

About

Books

Join the club