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Preface
Leo Tolstoy addressed at length a central issue of politics, namely, the use of violence to maintain order, to promote justice, and to ensure the survival of society, civilization, and the human species. As a strict pacifist in the last three decades of his life, he held that violence may not be used for these reasons or any others. He wrote at length on this issue, but precisely what position does he defend? How convincing is his defense of it? What does his approach offer to those who seek a faith-based attitude toward politics and violence? This book is a work of political science that offers an account of Leo Tolstoy as a Christian thinker on political violence. Tolstoy's pacifism is a striking example of the impact of religious idealism on political attitudes. Tolstoy presents an instructive case study in Christian pacifism and in the attractions and failings of strict, literalist, and simplistic religious approaches to the many and complex issues of politics. Yet one hundred years after his death, Tolstoy is a figure unfamiliar in political science. He is encountered, if at all, as the author of hortatory quotations on the wrongness of political violence or of allegiance to the state. This work seeks to serve the student of