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Ch. 17 ‘Colonialism rejected’ (pp. 396-412) examines workers’ and women’s protests and growing nationalism from the 1920s to 1950.

The author’s research spans the period 1998 -2012 to chart the impact of the economic reforms on rural women drawn into urban areas, often employed in domestic service or in hotels and office cleaning. She notes how this migration of cheap and flexible labour from the countryside has underpinned high levels of urban consumption, and both helped to empower the women migrants and to perpetuate gendered forms of difference and inequality.

See also: Chang, Leslie T., Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, New York, Penguin Random House, 2009, pp. 448 (pb).

Chang, who was a journalist for the Wall Street Journal inside China, revealed the lives of migrant women working on assembly lines in an industrial city, primarily by focusing on the experiences of two young women for three years.  Her book which won awards in the USA, threw light on a previously unknown area, and illustrated the very mixed impact of the economic reforms and migration from the countryside on women’s opportunities.

Scholarly, interdisciplinary analysis of the Assad regime and of the first two years of the uprising. The book explores the nature of the uprising, reasons for the lack of success, and why it turned into an increasingly sectarian civil war.

See also: Hinnenbusch, Raymond, Omar Imady and Tina Zintl, 'Civil Resistance in the Syrian Uprising: From Peaceful Protest to Sectarian Civil War', in Adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, Rory McCarthy and Timothy Garton Ash, eds. Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring  (E.V.B.a.), pp. 223-47.

An overview with a focus on the role, possibilities and limitations of civil resistance in the specific context of the Assad regime, and the realities of the civil war from 2012 and the rise of ISIS.

Wu, a university teacher of English educated in the US, returned to China in 1951. This is a personal account of his experiences. The Hundred Flowers campaign is covered pp. 47-72.

Chapter 4, ‘Transition to Peace and Nonviolent Politics in a Democratic State’, pp. 31-44.

Begins with forced eviction (despite their resistance) of about 500 travellers from their homes in 2011, and explores exclusion and labelling of a range of ‘abjected’ groups (treated as scapegoats) and denigration of their resistance. Main focus on Britain, but makes comparisons with other oppressed groups, such as those in the Niger Delta.

Covers pacifist and anti-war campaigning in Britain from the ‘imperialist pacifism’ of the Victorian period, through both World Wars to the birth of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the New Left in the 1950s and 1960s. Written from a democratic socialist perspective. Final chapters cover CND’s ‘second wave’ in the 1980s, the Gorbachev initiatives, and the role of the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign seeking to transcend the Cold War divide.

Analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the constitutional arrangements embodied in the Good Friday Agreement. Argues that despite the difficult concessions unionists had to make, the GFA was a triumph for them politically since it embodied the principle of consent for any constitutional change in the province and the amendment of Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic’s constitution. Rejects the proposition that the separate referendums on the GFA in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic amounted to a genuine exercise in Irish self-determination, but expresses cautious optimism that the void left by ‘the demise of traditional republicanism’ can be filled within the broader EU context by a growing bi-nationalism and diminution of the north-south border.

Following the 1996 ICJ Advisory Opinion that use or threat to use nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law, Angie Zelter, Ellen Moxley and Lilla Roder embarked on nonviolent direct action at the Trident nuclear base. The local Scottish Sheriff found them not guilty under international law as they were acting as 'world citizens'.  The case was referred to the High Court, which refused to rule on the legality of UK nuclear weapons. The 'Trident Ploughshares' campaign therefore mounted other protests to challenge these weapons. This book is a personal account of the anti-Trident campaign, and includes profiles of other individuals and groups that have become involved in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons and contributions by them.

Cummings notes that despite a significant reduction in poverty levels, and the establishment of political democracy since the end of the Pinochet regime in 1990, there were widespread high school and student protests in 2006 and 2011. These were supported by most of the population and indicated serious discontent. He suggests three main reasons: a gap between student expectations and ability to realize them; their collective sense of identity as a fearless new generation; and the specific interactions between the government and the students. 

Focuses on the Hungarian Writers’ Union from 1953-59.

see also  Mikio Oishi, Nonviolent Struggle of the Burmese People for Democracy, Durban, South Africa, 1998 , a paper submitted to the 1998 International Peace Research Association Conference.