He is considered one of the greatest novelists in any language in all of human history, but Leo Tolstoy was also an influential social reformer and peace advocate. Subtitled "Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but as a New Concept of Life," this powerful exploration of the preachings of Jesus from a pacifistic perspective. First published in 1893, it introduced such important 20th-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King to the concept of nonviolent resistance. This edition is vital reading for anyone wishing to understand the history of protest around the world or gain a deeper appreciation of pacifistic Christianity. Russian writer COUNT LEV ("LEO") NIKOLAYEVICH TOLSTOY (1828-1910) is best known for his novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Translation by Harvard professor of Slavic languages, Leo Weiner (1862-1939).

In this carefully constructed critical essay, written in 1894, Tolstoy admonishes a government that wages war by arousing patriotic fervor and a Church that supports such a government's policies. His argument-that war and patriotism have nothing in common with the Christian principles of nonviolence and nonresistance-continues to resound today.