The history of humanity is dominated by violence - it has oppressed and degraded us for centuries.

Since Mahatma Gandhi's successful campaign for India's independence, nonviolence has been embraced by freedom fighters such as Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Václav Havel. Characterised by courage, love, and freedom, and the belief that no political act can be just or truthful unless it is morally legitimate, nonviolence is a strategy of dissent that uses many methods of civil disobedience - be it strikes, boycotts, or demonstrations - to put an end to the social and political evil that it seeks to resist.

In his powerfully argued short book, Ramin Jahanbegloo contends that the time has come for humanity to renew its commitment - politically, economically, and culturally - to the idea of nonviolence.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is an Iranian-Canadian philosopher. He is presently the executive director of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Nonviolence and Peace Studies and the vice-dean of the School of Law at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India. HE is the winner of the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association in Spain (2009) for his extensive academic work in promoting dialogue among cultures and his advocacy for nonviolence. More recently, he is the winner of the Josep Palau i Fabre International Essay Prize. Some of his most recent publications are The DEcline of Civilisation (2017), On Forgiveness and Revenge (2017) and The Global Gandhi: Essays in Comparative Political Philosophy (2018).