Non-violence - The History of a Dangerous Idea
by Mark Kurlansky (with a foreword by the Dalai Lama)
Vintage, HK$128
Avid readers will recall that Mark Kurlansky wrote the surprisingly popular Cod - A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (1995). He went on to write Salt - A World History (2002), which even George W. Bush claims to have read. Then came 1968 - The Year That Rocked the World (2004), and most recently The Big Oyster - History on the Half Shell (2006). Nonviolence - The History of a Dangerous Idea is his 14th book in so many years and, while noted for its erudition and eloquence, irritated just about everyone with the implication that anyone who isn't a pacifist is a warmonger. Kurlansky lauds the moral courage required to 'meet deadly violence with nonviolent resistance', arguing that 'the attacker expects resistance, and when there is none he loses his 'moral balance''. The attacker is shamed. Ian Pinder wryly commented in The Guardian: 'Often the only dilemma pacifists pose their aggressors is how to dispose of so many corpses.' The Economist takes Kurlansky to task for the way he 'blithely ignores' the reluctant warrior for whom violence is the last resort after all else has failed, a point that doesn't escape the Dalai Lama in his foreword to this book.
