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The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War: Surprising ideas from everyday people who shifted the cycles of violence
“In a nation of millions, facing down a civil war starts with each and every one of us.”
In this Pocket Guide, internationally renowned peace practitioner John Paul Lederach reflects on his experience across over four decades mediating and transforming conflicts in places including Northern Ireland, Colombia, Nepal, Somalia, South Sudan, Nicaragua, and Tajikistan, among many others. His experiences grant him a unique perspective not only on what precipitates, propels, and sustains violent conflict, but also into key understandings and approaches that help shift dynamics of harm toward practices of social healing.
The Guide is framed to reflect on questions increasingly posed about the likelihood of divisive polarization in the United States leading toward political violence and even civil war. To consider this question, Lederach offers a comparative view. He suggests that despite the tendency in the U.S. to hold to exceptionalism, the country is not exempt from the toxic dynamics that have been faced in other settings where open armed conflict, once unleashed, became nearly impossible to end. In each chapter, Lederach describes a challenging pattern that repeats across contexts and animates toxic polarization and sustained armed conflict. He illustrates these dynamics with stories, observations, and wisdom gathered from his work with local communities and national leaders in places impacted by such toxicity, describing how they faced down and shifted seemingly ceaseless cycles of violence.
This Pocket Guide does not offer quick fixes. Rather, it explores the way ordinary people resisted and countered patterns of violence in their communities. Their curiosity, persistence, and creative innovation suggest that to face down a civil war and heal long-standing wounds that stoke cycles of violence, people must resist the pull of toxic polarization that legitimates violence as the only option. The challenge is to innovate pockets of vitality that embody the basic idea that politics without violence where we live is possible. Such innovation requires a web of courageous relationships that reach across divides, creating the connective tissue that fosters dignity and respect within, between, and across deep political and cultural difference.
The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War is intended as a draft, to start a conversation. Please visit our virtual conversation space at www.johnpaullederach.com/pocket-guide, where you can also access the Pocket Guide via free PDF download.
In this Pocket Guide, internationally renowned peace practitioner John Paul Lederach reflects on his experience across over four decades mediating and transforming conflicts in places including Northern Ireland, Colombia, Nepal, Somalia, South Sudan, Nicaragua, and Tajikistan, among many others. His experiences grant him a unique perspective not only on what precipitates, propels, and sustains violent conflict, but also into key understandings and approaches that help shift dynamics of harm toward practices of social healing.
The Guide is framed to reflect on questions increasingly posed about the likelihood of divisive polarization in the United States leading toward political violence and even civil war. To consider this question, Lederach offers a comparative view. He suggests that despite the tendency in the U.S. to hold to exceptionalism, the country is not exempt from the toxic dynamics that have been faced in other settings where open armed conflict, once unleashed, became nearly impossible to end. In each chapter, Lederach describes a challenging pattern that repeats across contexts and animates toxic polarization and sustained armed conflict. He illustrates these dynamics with stories, observations, and wisdom gathered from his work with local communities and national leaders in places impacted by such toxicity, describing how they faced down and shifted seemingly ceaseless cycles of violence.
This Pocket Guide does not offer quick fixes. Rather, it explores the way ordinary people resisted and countered patterns of violence in their communities. Their curiosity, persistence, and creative innovation suggest that to face down a civil war and heal long-standing wounds that stoke cycles of violence, people must resist the pull of toxic polarization that legitimates violence as the only option. The challenge is to innovate pockets of vitality that embody the basic idea that politics without violence where we live is possible. Such innovation requires a web of courageous relationships that reach across divides, creating the connective tissue that fosters dignity and respect within, between, and across deep political and cultural difference.
The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War is intended as a draft, to start a conversation. Please visit our virtual conversation space at www.johnpaullederach.com/pocket-guide, where you can also access the Pocket Guide via free PDF download.
- GenresNonfiction
118 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 28, 2024
68 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
John Paul Lederach
44 books70 followersDr. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He is widely known for the development of culturally based approaches to conflict transformation; the design and implementation of integrative, strategic approaches to peacebuilding; and for carving a robust integration of the arts and social change. Over the course of his career, Lederach has garnered extensive experience working with non-governmental organizations, community-based initiatives impacted by cycles of violence, and national peace process design. He has worked extensively as a practitioner in conciliation processes in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast and Central Asia.
Lederach is the author or editor of 30 books and manuals (translated into a dozen languages), and numerous academic articles and monographs on peace education, conflict transformation, international peacebuilding, and conciliation training. He has developed training materials and manuals available in Spanish on peace education, conflict transformation, and mediation, now used widely throughout Latin America.
Lederach received his bachelor’s degree in history and peace studies from Bethel College and his doctorate of philosophy degree in sociology, with a concentration on social conflict, from the University of Colorado. He currently serves as Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Lederach is the author or editor of 30 books and manuals (translated into a dozen languages), and numerous academic articles and monographs on peace education, conflict transformation, international peacebuilding, and conciliation training. He has developed training materials and manuals available in Spanish on peace education, conflict transformation, and mediation, now used widely throughout Latin America.
Lederach received his bachelor’s degree in history and peace studies from Bethel College and his doctorate of philosophy degree in sociology, with a concentration on social conflict, from the University of Colorado. He currently serves as Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 1, 2025
Ich kannte Lederach bisher nur von seinem Buch „vom Konflikt zur Versöhnung - Kühn träumen und pragmatisch handeln“. Das Buch war schon inspirierend.
Als amerikanischer Konflikt- und Friedensforscher wurde er immer wieder gefragt, ob die USA auf einen Bürgerkrieg zusteuern.
In diesem Buch versucht er sich dieser Frage mit praktischen Darstellungen von Konfliktdynamiken zu nähern.
Die hoffnungsvolle Art und Darstellung der vielen Personen und Gruppen die Konflikte vermittelnd angegangen sind, gefiel mir sehr gut.
Alleine wegen der Zitate schon ein lesenswertes Werk.
„It is striking that our dictionaries offer definitions of dehumanization, but never for rehumanization.“
„Toxic polarization and violence paralyze politics and destroy trust.“
„Toxic polarization will always reduce complexity to a binary. Us and them rules. We might even express this phrase as a poetic verb: Us-and-theming. What results is a form of social isolation defined by increasingly separate but impermeable identity groups.“
„In all conflicts a holy grail of grievance exists. The key is to under stand the dynamics of how the grail becomes holy enough to justify violence.“
„In the storied passageway of grievance, it is always the feelings that matters, not the facts.“
„Incuriosity falls consistently back to cycles of selfjustification and blame.“
„Public narratives about armed conflict and civil wars - as they appear in story, journalism, and the now omnipresent worlds of social media — fall prey to significantly unproductive habits: They prioritize a focus on personalities over understanding process, and place far more attention on sensational events than on exploring repeating patterns.“
Als amerikanischer Konflikt- und Friedensforscher wurde er immer wieder gefragt, ob die USA auf einen Bürgerkrieg zusteuern.
In diesem Buch versucht er sich dieser Frage mit praktischen Darstellungen von Konfliktdynamiken zu nähern.
Die hoffnungsvolle Art und Darstellung der vielen Personen und Gruppen die Konflikte vermittelnd angegangen sind, gefiel mir sehr gut.
Alleine wegen der Zitate schon ein lesenswertes Werk.
„It is striking that our dictionaries offer definitions of dehumanization, but never for rehumanization.“
„Toxic polarization and violence paralyze politics and destroy trust.“
„Toxic polarization will always reduce complexity to a binary. Us and them rules. We might even express this phrase as a poetic verb: Us-and-theming. What results is a form of social isolation defined by increasingly separate but impermeable identity groups.“
„In all conflicts a holy grail of grievance exists. The key is to under stand the dynamics of how the grail becomes holy enough to justify violence.“
„In the storied passageway of grievance, it is always the feelings that matters, not the facts.“
„Incuriosity falls consistently back to cycles of selfjustification and blame.“
„Public narratives about armed conflict and civil wars - as they appear in story, journalism, and the now omnipresent worlds of social media — fall prey to significantly unproductive habits: They prioritize a focus on personalities over understanding process, and place far more attention on sensational events than on exploring repeating patterns.“
December 7, 2024
John Paul Lederach has captured powerful insights into reversing cycles of violence. How is it that we are going to find a way to live together again? There are patterns and insights that can help us find the way from toxic polarization to respect and the dignity we all deserve.
The book is a pocket guide; it is concise. It is also well written and complete. 5-stars means I think everyone should read this book. All humans, and we are all humans, even them.
It is available on Kindle.
The book is a pocket guide; it is concise. It is also well written and complete. 5-stars means I think everyone should read this book. All humans, and we are all humans, even them.
It is available on Kindle.
July 19, 2025
Thorough and informative! A lot was packed into this small book, so much so that it took me several months to read it because I kept pausing to absorb and digest the stories and what they mean for my and our lives here in the US.
February 7, 2026
Building community ties in regions beset by violence isn't easy, but it's been done, and this book looks at several real-life examples. It's well worth a read in these divided times.
November 27, 2025
Each chapter highlighted something we can learn from how violence grows, and flip it around to see how peace grows.
Violence grows from small pockets (sporadic becomes sustained)—peace grows from grassroots.
Don’t be distracted by the lone wolf, but watch how webs of networks are formed for ill—but networks can be formed for good when we say "enough is enough" and have a grandmother’s imagination that cares for the 7th generation.
Violence grows from an unheard grievance—so listen to the backstory.
Fear can paralyze—or fear can bring you pause and internally prepare.
Isolation leads to polarization and silo-ing—or being together even across disagreements.
Splintering factions can be a tool for violence—or spreading around a network of interconnected peacekeepers can link people together.
“It only takes one” is the fear that leads to “broken windows” philosophy—or be the first to turn the other cheek and inspire hope in others.
The networks of violence are swampy seas (not transparent)—remembering and acknowledging history of pain brings forward clarity.
Leaders of violence feel powerlessly trapped in the cycle of violence—or we can lead in the messiness of feeling trapped between being one of my group and “selling out” by having compassion for the enemy.
Drawing lines on maps divides people—but people can redraw map lines in real life.
Violence grows from small pockets (sporadic becomes sustained)—peace grows from grassroots.
Don’t be distracted by the lone wolf, but watch how webs of networks are formed for ill—but networks can be formed for good when we say "enough is enough" and have a grandmother’s imagination that cares for the 7th generation.
Violence grows from an unheard grievance—so listen to the backstory.
Fear can paralyze—or fear can bring you pause and internally prepare.
Isolation leads to polarization and silo-ing—or being together even across disagreements.
Splintering factions can be a tool for violence—or spreading around a network of interconnected peacekeepers can link people together.
“It only takes one” is the fear that leads to “broken windows” philosophy—or be the first to turn the other cheek and inspire hope in others.
The networks of violence are swampy seas (not transparent)—remembering and acknowledging history of pain brings forward clarity.
Leaders of violence feel powerlessly trapped in the cycle of violence—or we can lead in the messiness of feeling trapped between being one of my group and “selling out” by having compassion for the enemy.
Drawing lines on maps divides people—but people can redraw map lines in real life.
January 9, 2025
Offering an alternative to civil war and unrest in the United States
I was introduced to John Paul Lederach's writings in 1999 when I participated in the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center's Mediation Training Event. I have never been disappointed in what Lederach has written. This little book is a must reading for every country in our world especially the United States today. This book offers an excellent road map for the practitioner and the every day citizen for meaningful dialog to the civil unrest. I would suggest the Kindle version because of the bibliography and the hyperlinks. The author offers up many great roadmaps and stories for the user to use if you are serious about meaningful societal dialog.
I was introduced to John Paul Lederach's writings in 1999 when I participated in the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center's Mediation Training Event. I have never been disappointed in what Lederach has written. This little book is a must reading for every country in our world especially the United States today. This book offers an excellent road map for the practitioner and the every day citizen for meaningful dialog to the civil unrest. I would suggest the Kindle version because of the bibliography and the hyperlinks. The author offers up many great roadmaps and stories for the user to use if you are serious about meaningful societal dialog.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews