American's how-to guide to toppling dictatorships

Excerpts from the book "From Dictatorship to Democracy," a guide to nonviolent resistance written by retired American scholar Gene Sharp and being cited by some Iranian protesters:

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The guide lists 198 different "methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion," including: public speeches, skywriting, display of flags and symbolic colors, protest "disrobings," vigils, performances of plays and music, strikes and sit-ins.

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"Nonviolent struggle is a much more complex and varied means of struggle than is violence. Instead, the struggle is fought by psychological, social, economic, and political weapons applied by the population and the institutions of the society. These have been known under various names of protests, strikes, noncooperation, boycotts, disaffection and people power."

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"The common error of past improvised political defiance campaigns is the reliance on only one or two methods, such as strikes and mass demonstrations. In fact, a multitude exist that allow resistance strategists to concentrate and disperse resistance as required."

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"About two hundred specific methods of nonviolent action have been identified, and there are certainly scores more. The use of a considerable number of these methods - carefully chosen, applied persistently and on a large scale, wielded in the context of a wise strategy and appropriate tactics, by trained civilians - is likely to cause any illegitimate regime severe problems."
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