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The subject of the fifth chapter is the first major all-India campaign led by Gandhi, the Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919. This was in reaction to oppressive legislation being introduced by the British to counter a supposed threat from violent extremist nationalists. The nonviolent protest met with a draconian reaction in Punjab, which included the notorious Amritsar massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, creating what is described in the literature on nonviolent resistance as ‘backfire’ – where terror by the state serves to alienate moderates and thus create the conditions for even more powerful resistance. This led into the major anti-British campaign of 1920-22, the Noncooperation Movement, which is the subject of the next volume.

The themes of the book are summarized and there is a discussion of the two main forms of nonviolent protest developed by Indian nationalists during this period: the pragmatic use of it as a political tacticin particular circumstances, as theorized by Aurobindo Ghose, and the Gandhian emphasis on nonviolence as an absolute moral principle, as seen in his concepts of satyagraha and ahimsa. The way that Gandhi promoted a secular, rather than Hindu form of nationalism, is discussed. Notions of national honor and levels of leadership of the movement are also examined.

This chapter examines African Americans' responses to the violence in Kenya. The Kenya Land and Freedom Movement, popularly known as Mau Mau, launched a war to overthrow white supremacy and to reclaim the land. As black Americans grappled with different approaches to gaining rights and freedom, most did not accept, let alone embrace, violence. Legal avenues, and then nonviolent protest, were the preferred ways to effect change in America.

This chapter focuses on Boston's saga, which still seemed unique despite reflecting patterns of resistance to school desegregation in other cities. Violence had exceeded that of other cities under court orders, and Boston had attained regrettable status as a symbol of what not to do in implementing desegregation. Thus, in Buffalo, after years of white resistance paralleling Boston's, a 1976 court order elicited relatively moderate, nonviolent protest. The presence of black elected officials and a plan phased in over several years contributed to a smoother process, but so did a conscious determination not to repeat Boston's mistakes. In 1979, similarly, a “not like Boston” mentality took hold in Columbus, Ohio. In contrast to Boston, too, desegregation actually advanced nationally from 1968 to 1980. In districts under court orders, racial imbalance was reduced by half, and the percentage of African American students in heavily minority schools declined, most dramatically in the South.

The second chapter establishes a manifesto for anarchist geographies, serving as a proverbial call to nonviolent arms for geographers and non-geographers who seek to put an end to the seemingly endless series of tragedies, misfortunes, and catastrophes that characterize the miasma and malevolence of the current neoliberal moment. While it may seem that anarchism supports violence, its position against the state, and in particular the monopolization, institutionalization, and codification of violence that such a spatial organization represents, would mean that anarchism, in fact, offers an alternative geographical imagination that refuses violent means. Anarchist geographies is instead a means of provoking a more liberationist framework that potentially breaks from both the discursive formation of neoliberalism and the limitations of Marxism in relation to contemporary struggles.

This chapter tackles the problem of finding data-derived indicators to measure the quality of peace, versus a definition of peace simply as the absence of war. Conceptually, peace is seen as an equilibrium condition where resort to violence is minimal and where the highest quality of peace exists when the idea of armed violence approaches the unthinkable. The author draws upon the early work of Quincy Wright and Kenneth Boulding and progresses from there, establishing first their definitions of and conditions for peace. To put his theories to work, he introduces two proxy indicators: black market currency exchanges and bond market prices. Specifically, he examines and compares the premiums attached to the black market values of currencies in less stable economies and relates them to factors that promote destabilization of the equilibrium. Similarly, he compares the strip spreads on sovereign bonds as an indicator of government stability and instability.