Small Acts of Resistance by Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson Union Square Press, HK$120
Normally, coffee table books are large hardcover volumes printed on glossy paper. But the basic principle - broad topical survey, discontinuous vignettes - works well enough small and without photos.
A quick read, Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity, and Ingenuity can Change the World doesn't demand you follow any idea more complex than its title from beginning to end. You could easily flip through and get the point while your host is in the kitchen getting more cream and biscuits.
In one uplifting anecdote after another, we learn about how ordinary people from Beijing to Bogota, from Tehran to Talinn, from Warsaw to Washington, from Lisbon to Liberia - you get the idea - stood up for themselves and made the world a better place. Many of those profiled faced harrowing risks in their quest for dignity, often jail time or worse.
Each historical episode is in itself interesting. One major takeaway is the importance of creativity in problem solving - from the prison soccer team that grew into Nelson Mandela's government to the Colombian women whose sexual strike stopped violence. Another is that, in the right time and place and with access to the right audience or information, individuals can be surprisingly powerful, or at least teleologically seem to be so.
But these small acts of resistance are never synthesised into 'Asymmetric Nonviolent Struggle With Courage and a Sense of Humour'. Instead, they have the feel of a self-help book or compendium of uplifting quotations. There is little acknowledgement of the challenges and trade-offs faced by those who oppose bad governance, cynicism, or oppression. How much of a hero are you really if your actions put your children's lives at risk? Can you always do more good by resigning from a post, or is staying in power a better way to influence outcomes?