Resistance and Contemplation

I rejoice in this day and in this book becoming available once again. At Jonah House, the place I've called home for 33 years, we've had numerous copies of it in the years since it was first published. One copy remains - dog-eared, read, reread, studied. It was a book that we reflected on together in community - the backbone, if you will, next to the Scriptures - of our on-going resistance out of community.

Elizabeth McAlister, Jonah House (from the foreword)

This book has been of extraordinary significance to large numbers of young people, resisters, prisoners, searchers, many who have been increasingly perplexed and anguished by the course of American life in the world. My brother Philip and I have used it in numerous sessions with students and others, who found in it the sustenance necessary to allow them to take the next step in their struggle on behalf of life. It seems to me that this book will continue, in its own quiet and persistent way, to reach those Americans who are capable of inviting us into any future worth speaking about.

Daniel Berrigan


From perspectives of truth, nonviolence and resistance to personal and cultural violence, this book is among the few important books of the last decade. Neutrality to this book is impossible -- people will view it as a gift, or they will reject it as a threat....enlightening, strengthening, liberating.

Philip Berrigan


Jim Douglass is a writer and a Catholic Worker. He and his wife Shelley are co-founders of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, WA, and Mary's House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality in Birmingham, AL. He is currently writing three books on the assassinations of the Kennedys, Malcom X and King in the 1960's (with Orbis Books).


The James Douglass Reprint Series:
The Non-Violent Cross
Resistance and Contemplation
Lightning East to West
The Nonviolent Coming of God