Gene Sharp - Biography

Biography

Sharp was born in North Baltimore, Ohio, the son of an itinerant Protestant minister. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences in 1949 from Ohio State University, where he also received his Master of Arts in Sociology in 1951. In 1953-54, Sharp was jailed for nine months after protesting the conscription of soldiers for the Korean War. He worked as factory labourer, guide to a blind social worker, and secretary to A. J. Muste, America’s leading pacifist. Between 1955 and 1958 he was Assistant Editor of Peace News, London, the weekly pacifist Newspaper. The next two years he studied and researched in Oslo with Professor Arne Naess, who derived together with Johan Galtung from Mohandas Gandhi‘s writings the „Satyagraha Norms“. . In 1968, he received a Doctor of Philosophy in political theory from Oxford University.

Sharp has been a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth since 1972. He simultaneously held research appointments at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs since 1965. In 1983 he founded the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization devoted to studies and promotion of the use of nonviolent action in conflicts worldwide.

In 2009 and 2012 he was nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Sharp was widely considered the favourite for the 2012 award. In 2011 he was awarded the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize. In 2012 he was awarded, together with Sima Samar and Campaign Against Arms Trade, the Right Livelihood Award In 2012 he was also awarded the Distinguished Lifetime Democracy Award.