A stirring look at nonviolent activism, from American suffragists to Civil Rights to the Climate Change Movement.
 
Todd Hasak-Lowy’s We Are Power brings to light the incredible individuals who have used nonviolent activism to change the world. The book explores questions such as what is nonviolent resistance and how does it work? In an age when armies are stronger than ever before, when guns seem to be everywhere, how can people confront their adversaries without resorting to violence themselves?
 
Through key international movements as well as people such as Gandhi, Alice Paul, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Václav Havel, this book discusses the components of nonviolent resistance. It answers the question “Why nonviolence?” by showing how nonviolent movements have succeeded again and again in a variety of ways, in all sorts of places, and always in the face of overwhelming odds. The book includes endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.
 
“Nonviolence may have been the greatest invention of the twentieth century, more important than nuclear fission or genetic coding. It offers us the chance to build a working twenty-first century, and since young people will have to lead that fight, this book is a crucial gift!” —Bill McKibben, climate activist and author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
 
Includes black-and-white photographs

Todd Hasak-Lowy is the author of several books for young readers. He is a professor of creative writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Hasak-Lowy lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife and two daughters. Visit toddhasaklowy.com.