Noted military journalist Thomas E. Ricks moves from armed conflict to a nonviolent one in his newest book. Couching the Civil Rights Movement in military history and strategy is a novel approach and gives credence to the nonviolent war that was waged across the American South and other locales as Movement leaders sought to combat racial injustice without violence. The book synthesizes weightier academic tomes into an accessible, highly readable account that works to highlight voices from the Movement that more mainstream presentations may have missed.

Informative and helpful guide into nonviolence, a Gandhian tactic more aggressive in achieving its goals than open hostilities.

'Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968' describes the mechanics of nonviolence that led to the actual desegregation of the South.

Thomas E. Ricks, a war reporter and military history specialist, provides a new glance into the movement of the 1950s-1960s in America that gave rise to such figures as Martin Luther King Jr., Diane Nash, James Lawson, and James Bevel, among the countless others. From the Montgomery bus boycott to the King's assassination, the book guides the readers through the essential battles, focusing on the appliance of Gandhian philosophy to American reality. To achieve their goals, leaders spent months in preparation, much longer than the actual event itself. The thorough research of the surroundings, recruiting and training of volunteers, unexpected twists in tactics if the old one wasn't working, and the little victories instead of unrealistic global changes resembled how an army operates before and in battle. Whenever these essentials were missing (like in Chicago), the movement achieved little in the best case; in the worst, it complicated the situation on the ground.

Distilling the tremendous amount of information to serve one purpose - to show the principles of nonviolence - the author managed to illuminate well-known facts in a new light. When starting the book, I considered recommending it only to people with no previous knowledge of the subject. After all, everybody at least heard, if not researched, about Martin Luther King Jr. However, as the author dived deeper into the philosophical aspects of Gandhian teaching, without employing an academic style, I found myself anticipating the next page and the next, and the next. For people who need practical lessons in nonviolence, the book can be a step-by-step guide as well as a source of further reading.

Violence produces more violence. Why not learn from history how effective nonviolence can be?