On Violence by Hannah Arendt (1968). Arendt gets a second listing in this short book. In it, Arendt further updates her unique ideas about politics and challenges Mao Zedong: political power doesn’t flow from the barrel of a gun, but from persuasion. Guns are the mark of force; politics the realm of speech. Mao is right about the role of force and coercion in our lives, but I think that Arendt right about politics. Speech is the mark of democracy and reason.
