Foreword

There was a time – not so very long ago – when if a social movements researcher wished to learn what the scholarly community knew about the complicated social and political dynamics of nonviolent action, that researcher would find many scholarly works by Gene Sharp, and not very much else. Thankfully, in the past two decades that reality has changed dramatically. Not only has the world been treated of late to a series of high-profile cases of nonviolent resistance, but the scholarly study of nonviolent action has blossomed as well. Equally notable is the nascent and long-overdue cross-fertilization now occurring between social movement scholarship and nonviolent studies.