Welcome to The Territory where I will be writing about books that you can match against who you are and what you’re about. The Territory is an opportunity to get switched onto something that, like it or not, you won’t forget. Books that take chances and get scorned, banned and burned. The real deal is always found on the business end of supression and the New York Times best sellers list isn’t doing a thing for me these days. Save the light reading for the people who shop for books at the grocery store. The Territory is a place for books that take a bite out of the life that other books just smell, criticize and eclipse in hype.

So lets get it happnin! The book I’m going to start out with will begin this blog in full stride. I’m talking about Leo Tolstoy. Now Leo was a Russian author and is most famous for two of his books called Anna Karenina and War and Peace. I think the Russians get a bad rap about being dreary and gloomy when it comes to books and it just isn’t true. Leo Tolstoy is a great example of just how funny, cool and to the point those Russians can be when they get the pen to the paper. Russians are typically known for looooooonnnng books that seem like they would take your whole life to read when looking at them on the shelf when actually if you cracked it open you’d find yourself sorry that it was ending so soon. The book I want to get to on this blog is one of Leo Tolstoys lesser known books. It’s a collection of essays LT did called Civil Disobediance and Non-Violence. This book should be held in the higher eschelons of any counter culture existing today. Before I even get into CDANV I’ve got to talk about its story as well. CDANV has influenced so many amazing rebels and thinkers out there that much of what we know today has stemmed from people who were inspiried by it. Tolstoy had a great deal of influence to Ghandi and the two actually corrosponded for about a year and a half before LT died in 1910. Ghandi spoke often about CDANV and it’s influence on his ideas of social change. By social change I mean that hunger strike that ol Ghandi did that brought a country and corrupt government to its knees while he didn’t even lift a finger to harm anyone. To far from home? Ok. There’s another rebel who wouldn’t take no for an answer just as much as he wouldn’t take a gun in his hand and he changed America forever. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. Both G and MLK sited CDANV as a specific inspiration to their causes and getting an effect. So here’s the gig with CDANV. Leo Tolstoy had already made a name for himself as an author when he got going on this book. LT had in his later years turned to christianity and anarchism (both of which he formerly rejected) and speaking his mind on things that weren’t to popular (which he always did but got better at with every year). In LT’s mind, he figured that if one was a Christian, a follower of the teachings of Christ, than one could not be a soldier. That the two were mutually exclusive and just as no officer could order Jesus Christ to kill anyone, no officer could logisitcally order a Christian to kill anyone. He put these thoughts into a letter and sent it to the military when they asked LT to write for them. The letter caught on and spread like wildfire. It came so that it was posted in just about every Russian military outpost and this is the dangerous part. The Russian military being so devout in their beliefs began decenting and quitting at alarming numbers. The Government tried to put a stop to it but once something catches on that began at the grass roots it can’t be put out by anyone no matter how powerful the Government is. This book brings up very self defining questions about your relationship with God, The Military, Society and The Status Quo. Whatever answers you come up with by the end of the book, the lines you draw for yourself will be that much clearer for what you are and are not about.

“You and what army?”

you can get it here:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?tn=tolstoy+on+civil+disobedience+and+non-violence&sortby=2&sts=t&bi=0&bx=off&y=0&ds=30&x=0