The Cases: The 20th century
Forty-one cases open the chapters of the book, from the story of Talut and Goliath to the race for artificial intelligence. Each has its chapter and its lesson. In the book a story is a way into understanding, not a conclusive proof of it.
20 cases
- 3
Vietnam
When the jungle defeats an empire
- 8
The Battle of Karameh
A field contest between an occupying force and those who held firm
- 11
Gandhi
When the spirit is stronger than the cannon
- 12
The Intifada of the stones
When stones are stronger than tanks
- 14
The Algerian revolution
A million and a half martyrs as the price of freedom
- 16
The fall of apartheid
When injustice becomes a witness against itself
- 19
South Korea, 1987
When one funeral moves an entire nation
- 20
The Carnation Revolution
When a flower stops a rifle
- 21
May 1968
When students overturn the table on history
- 22
The collapse of the Soviet Union
When a totalitarian system exhausts itself until it falls
- 23
The fall of the Berlin Wall
When the wall of fear breaks before the wall of concrete
- 24
The Great Depression
When catastrophe produces a new order
- 25
Martin Luther King
When the word moves what weapons cannot
- 28
The Bolshevik revolution
When hunger topples the crown
- 29
The Iranian revolution
A deferred contention that began in 1953
- 34
The Pentagon Papers
When the government takes the truth to court
- 37
Solidarity
When the union defeats the Party
- 38
Lithuania and the Baltic Way
When a human chain breaks the shackles of empire
- 39
The Prague Spring
When freedom is buried, then grows back from under the snow
- 41
Malek Bennabi
When an idea is an army