Making Europe Unconquerable
book by Gene Sharp

Making Europe Unconquerable is a book about how civilian-based defense can be incorporated into the foundations of European defense and collective security. Written by Gene Sharp, the book was originally published in the United Kingdom and United States in 1985. Its subtitle was the potential of civilian-based deterrence and defense. The book was reviewed in major newspapers, magazines, and professional journals. Although it advocated a significant departure from existing defense policies, it received a favorable review from George F. Kennan, widely perceived as one of the major architects of the US approach to the Cold War. Later in the same year, the book was republished with a foreword from Kennan. It has also been published in Dutch and Italian editions.
Topics covered
In its opening pages, Making Europe Unconquerable states that
This book is mostly about... ‘civilian-based defence’... In this policy, the whole population and the society's institutions become the fighting forces.
“Making Europe Unconquerable” enters the record as book by Gene Sharp. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Making, Europe and Unconquerable can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6739582. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Making Europe Unconquerable” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.