Last Born In The Wilderness

In this episode, I speak with anarchist, activist, and writer Peter Gelderloos. Peter is the author of numerous books, two of which we examine in this interview — ‘How Nonviolence Protects The State’ and ’Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation.’ In this discussion, I ask Peter to examine the most lauded nonviolent movements in recent history: the anti-colonial movement in India in the early 20th century (in which Mahatma Gandhi became well known for his use of nonviolent resistance against British rule) and the civil rights and anti-war movements in the United States in the 1950s through the 1970s. As Peter elaborates in his book ‘How Nonviolence Protects The State,’ nonviolence and pacifism in general severely limit resistance movements in adequately and seriously upending and defending against entrenched systems of oppression and violence — the State being the ultimate manifestation of this in the world today (and through out much of human history, as we explore later). We get at the