The Non-Violence Movement and Its Contradictions in the Context of History—A Review of Non-Violence: A History beyond the Myth by Domenico Losurdo

Until now, the history of the non-violence movement has been written by commentators who have no intention of hiding their sympathies for the movement. However, Domenico Losurdo’s Non-Violence: A History beyond the Myth is one of the first texts to confront this topic with seriousness, using scientific methods and a comparative historiographic approach. Losurdo does not limit himself to a history of the ideas of the movement’s leading figures—from the American Christian abolitionists to Gandhi and Luther King—but instead analyses their theories, political opinions, contradictions, moral dilemmas and concrete behaviours in the context of great historical crises and transformations. Losurdo’s book also dedicates plenty of space to current events, analysing how the West today uses non-violence as a way to discredit its enemies. The delegitimation of the People’s Republic of China and the so-called “colour revolutions” demonstrate that even a noble ideal like non-violence can be easily exploited with a malicious intention. It is preferable, then, according to Losurdo, to fight for a “democratisation of international relations” that will inevitably lead to the strengthening of the front of less developed countries and to battling against the oxymoronic “humanitarian wars” or “wars for peace.”