Political activism / Political engagement Books

Book SynopsisLocal participation is the new democratic imperative. In the United States, three-fourths of all cities have developed opportunities for citizen involvement in strategic planning. The World Bank has invested $85 billion over the last decade to support community participation worldwide. But even as these opportunities have become more popular, many contend that they have also become less connected to actual centers of power and the jurisdictions where issues relevant to communities are decided. With this book, Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Ernesto Ganuza consider the opportunities and challenges of democratic participation. Examining how one mechanism of participation has traveled the world—with its inception in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and spread to Europe and North America—they show how participatory instruments have become more focused on the formation of public opinion and are far less attentive to, or able to influence, actual reform. Though the current impact and benefit of participatory forms of government is far more ambiguous than its advocates would suggest, Popular Democracy concludes with suggestions of how participation could better achieve its political ideals.Trade Review"Projects for citizen participation are reshaping discussions about democracy and actual government practices around the world. Yet the role of experts and bureaucracies has grown at the same time. Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Ernesto Ganuza make sense of this seeming paradox and identify the possibilities of a rapidly changing political era."—Craig Calhoun, Centennial Professor, London School of Economics"Popular Democracy is a masterpiece! If you're tearing your hair out over the crisis of democracy, this book is for you. Let Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Ernesto Ganuza—with the precision of scientists and artistry of storytellers—lead you deeply into the emergent, fascinating world of face-to-face democracy, particularly 'participatory budgeting.' The nuances and paradoxes of Popular Democracy intrigue rather than baffle, so this extraordinary book can encourage us to stop the wringing of hands and instead dig them deeply into the good dirt of democracy."—Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet and Democracy's Edge"Popular Democracy makes an eminent and critical contribution to the scholarship about one of the most interesting political experiments of our time, extending ethnographic work to acquire historical depth and global scope. Theoretically deft and methodologically innovative, it lifts the discussion to a new level and is a good read to boot."—Andreas Glaeser, University of Chicago"This book is an excellent example of careful research that engagingly narrates the blow-by-blow of everyday politics while analyzing larger theoretical issues....Baiocchi and Ganuza have the ability to express complex ideas about participation in an elegant and intelligible manner. For that reason, I would even recommend this book to advanced undergraduate students who are interested in recent political changes. These strengths and the importance of the analysis make the book a significant contribution to political sociology."—Andrew Buck, American Journal of SociologyTable of Contents1. The Participation Age 2. The New Spirit of Government 3. The Global Spread of Participation 4. The Rhetoric of Emancipation: Córdoba, Spain 5. A Government Closer to the People: Chicago, Illinois 6. The Utopian Undercurrent of Participation

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Book SynopsisWhat led a former United States Attorney General to become one of the world's most notorious defenders of the despised? Defending the Public's Enemy examines Clark's enigmatic life and career in a quest to answer this perplexing question. The culmination of ten years of research and interviews, Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. explores how Clark evolved from our government's chief lawyer to a strident advocate for some of America's most vilified enemies. Clark's early career was enmeshed with seminally important people and events of the 1960s: Martin Luther King, Jr., Watts Riots, Selma-to-Montgomery March, Black Panthers, Vietnam. As a government insider, he worked to secure the civil rights of black Americans, resisting persistent, racist calls for more law and order. However, upon entering the private sector, Clark seemingly changed, morphing into the government's adversary by aligning with a mystifying array of demonized clients—among them, alleged terrorists, reputed Nazi war criminals, and brutal dictators, including Saddam Hussein. Is Clark a man of character and integrity, committed to ensuring his government's adherence to the ideals of justice and fairness, or is he a professional antagonist, anti-American and reflexively contrarian to the core? The provocative life chronicled in Defending the Public's Enemy is emblematic of the contradictions at the heart of American political history, and society's ambivalent relationship with dissenters and outliers, as well as those who defend them.Trade Review"Lonnie T. Brown Jr.'s biography of the remarkable Ramsey Clark is careful, thorough, and insightful. It is an important contribution to the history of American lawyering." -- Randall Kennedy * Harvard Law School *"In this captivating biography, Lonnie T. Brown offers an intimate window into Ramsey Clark's controversial career as it intersected and shaped twentieth-century political and legal history, and challenges how we understand the role of lawyers in a democratic society." -- Anthony Romero, Executive Director * ACLU *"Ramsey Clark is at once an important participant in the major events of the past 60-plus years of American and world history, particularly relating to civil and human rights, and a lawyer whose professional career is among the most interesting and impactful. Brown's book is both a fascinating account of the man and lawyer and a captivating lens through which to see a connection among important events in contemporary history." -- Bruce Green * Fordham University School of Law *"In this biography of Clark, author Lonnie T. Brown skillfully leads us through his subject's life and career, giving us clues as to why Clark turned into such an unyielding critic of his country." -- Rebecca Roiphe * JOTWELL *"Ramsey Clark is an unsung hero of the civil rights movement. Through extensive interviews with Clark, Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. deepens the portrait of one of the most complex figures in twentieth-century American history. Spanning Clark's career as a lawyer and public servant from the 1960's civil rights and anti-war protests through the trial of Saddam Hussein, this fascinating book reveals a 'sophisticated yet shadowy Forrest Gump' indeed." -- W. Bradley Wendel * Cornell Law School *"Evolving from one of the most accomplished public lawyers of his time to perhaps the most vilified, Ramsey Clark has been an important and controversial participant in nearly every important American public debate, from civil rights to the post-9/11 world. In this sympathetic, personal account, Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. strikes a balance between Clark's defenders and his critics. Clark will continue to inspire passionate disagreement, but this is the best account we have of the career of this important public figure." -- Kenneth W. Mack * author of Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsPrologue chapter abstractThe Prologue recounts the origins of my interest in Ramsey Clark, including two inauspicious early encounters during which I had virtually no idea who he was. As the years passed, I became ever-more intrigued with Clark, spawned largely by a case that I covered in my civil -procedure class in which he served as lead counsel—Saltany v. Reagan, as in President Ronald Reagan, one of the defendants that Clark sued on behalf of Libyan residents. When he volunteered to represent former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, I had to figure out why a former U.S. attorney general would do such a thing, among many other things. I wrote a law review article examining the Hussein representation, and with a nudge from a former colleague and friend of Clark's, I shared it with my subject and soon thereafter embarked on my quest to tell his life story. Introduction: A Puzzling Journey chapter abstractThis Introduction sets the stage for the book, posing the conundrum that is Ramsey Clark, an enormously important figure in American history who is largely unknown by most. It provides an overview in terms of his immeasurable contributions to society through his service within the Department of Justice during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, highlighting some of the most significant events in which he played pivotal roles, especially in the area of civil rights. The Introduction also notes the seemingly dramatic change that he underwent in his post-DOJ life, taking on causes and clients that almost inevitably appeared to be adverse to the country that he had so loyally served for eight years. Many have sought to understand and explain what happened to Ramsey Clark, if anything, and here I introduce some of the theories proffered by friends, colleagues, and other observers. 1Baby Bubba chapter abstractWith the disclaimer that the book will not go into excruciating, chronological detail concerning Ramsey Clark's family tree and personal history, this chapter proceeds to cover the beginning of Clark's journey, broadly depicting his childhood and early adult years, including service in World War II, college, marriage, law school, children, and law practice in Dallas, Texas. The chapter also examines some defining episodes during those years that foreshadow the direction that his life would take, such as the death of his 6-year-old brother, his father Tom's oversight of the World War II-related internment of Japanese Americans, and Ramsey's perplexing acquisition of a large bust of Adolf Hitler while serving as a Marine courier. 2The Preacher chapter abstractThis chapter chronicles Ramsey Clark's transition from private to public life. With the election of President John F. Kennedy, Clark was moved to seek an appointment within the Justice Department. Some strong family-related connections, including with Vice President Lyndon Johnson, helped him secure an appointment as assistant attorney general for the Lands Division. While his noteworthy Lands Division work is touched upon in the chapter, the concentration is on Clark's dedicated involvement in emerging civil rights issues. He acted as a DOJ surrogate throughout the South, ensuring the enforcement of the Supreme Court's desegregation mandate. Clark became known within the DOJ for his willingness to speak his mind, garnering him the nickname "the Preacher." The chapter concludes with the devastating impact upon Clark of the tragic assassination of President Kennedy and his subsequent increased role within the new Johnson administration. 3"Language of the Unheard" chapter abstractThis chapter examines the significant role that Ramsey Clark played in pivotal aspects of the civil rights movement, beginning with his crafting of a memo to Bobby Kennedy that provided much of the initial inspiration and framework for what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He wrote this on the heels of his involvement with the historic admission of James Meredith as the first African American at the University of Mississippi. In addition, the chapter canvasses Clark's important work on behalf of black citizens as the deputy attorney general, including his oversight of the third Selma to Montgomery civil rights march and his extensive involvement in the passage of the Voting Rights Act. 4Taking Poor Black People Seriously chapter abstractThis chapter delves deeply into Clark's transformative role as chair of the President's task force that investigated the Watts riots, which were triggered by a combative police arrest in the black community. As the chapter's title conveys, Clark took the rioters seriously, and he compassionately sought to understand what had led to the dramatic civil unrest. By listening, Clark came to profoundly comprehend the frustrations and hopelessness felt by African Americans, and he communicated this in a hard-hitting report to the president—so unashamedly truthful, in fact, that it was not released to the public. The chapter reveals that this was a defining experience for Clark, one that likely colored virtually everything Clark did thereafter. In addition, the chapter recounts his elevation to attorney general, a role in which he would controversially continue to deal with urban rioting in the same empathetic way. 5"I Am a Man" chapter abstractThis chapter examines the profound influence that Martin Luther King, Jr. had on Ramsey Clark. The focus is on the labor strike by black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, inspired by the slavelike treatment they received as employees of the city. Dr. King had already announced his Poor People's Campaign, which was designed to shed a revealing light on the intense poverty problem in America. The Memphis strike—with its simple, but unforgettable slogan "I Am a Man"—embodied the poverty issue. It captured Dr. King's attention. Unfortunately, his involvement provided the setting for King's assassination on April 4, 1968. Attorney General Clark was the first federal official on the scene and led the international manhunt to capture King's assassin. The chapter demonstrates how Dr. King's example helped shape Clark's views on society. In many respects, he would subsequently carry the mantle that Dr. King hoisted throughout his life. 6"Hell No, We Won't Go!" chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on the widespread protests that emerged in opposition to America's involvement in the Vietnam War, particularly in the form of draft-eligible men refusing induction into the military, either on their own accord or at the urging of others. President Johnson was obsessed with the war, believing that defeat would forever tarnish his noteworthy civil rights legacy. As such, he took great offense to those who actively opposed the war effort, and he placed intense pressure on Clark to put an end to the draft-dodging and related demonstrations through criminal prosecution. The chapter examines and seeks to explain two instances of Clark's actions in response that were perplexingly inconsistent: his refusal to indict Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael and, in contrast, his decision to prosecute antiwar proponent and noted pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and the other members of the so-called Boston Five. 7Battling on the Inside chapter abstractThis chapter reveals the palpable tension between President Johnson and his independent attorney general. Clark was so committed to his values that he was willing to defy the president if he thought that was the right thing to do. The chapter examines significant examples of this dynamic, including Clark's stalling of a controversial judicial appointment that upset the close relationship between Johnson and Georgia Senator Richard Russell. The chapter also recounts Clark's defiance of President Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in connection with the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Clark was intent on protecting the anti–Vietnam War protesters, much to Johnson and Daley's dismay. The chapter recounts the intense police–protester clash that ensued and the resulting criminal prosecution of the so-called Chicago Seven. It also notes Clark's principle-based filing of various lawsuits, notwithstanding Johnson's directive that no new, long-term projects be undertaken after Nixon's election. 8Taking the Battle to the Outside chapter abstractThis chapter picks up with Clark's departure from the Justice Department and chronicles his developing penchant for undertaking seemingly anti-American causes. Most notably, the chapter details Clark's opposition to the Vietnam War, which, besides promoting complete amnesty for draft evaders, also included a controversial visit to North Vietnam to test firsthand the accuracy of his government's positive portrayal of its war effort. Clark determined the "truth" to be otherwise, and he publicly revealed what he witnessed and demanded an end to the "unjust" war. Related to this, the chapter likewise examines Clark's representation of various antiwar advocates and his growing stature as a leader in the international antiwar movement. Furthermore, the chapter recounts Clark's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaigns, plus his representations of Frank Serpico and one of the Attica Brothers. 9Black Is Beautiful chapter abstractThis chapter observes that Ramsey Clark was involved in a number of highly notable matters following his departure from the DOJ and tells the story of one of his most intriguing cases, the defense of Ruchell Magee. The prosecution of Magee, who is African American, emanated from an armed courtroom seizure of hostages and resulting shooting deaths of various individuals, including a trial judge. The controversial racial component of the case, combined with the unjust nature of the justice system that shackled Magee throughout virtually his entire life, are used to highlight Clark's concern for and appreciation of black people. In a similar vein, the chapter recounts Clark's oversight of the investigation into the police-sanctioned murders of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, and it elaborates on Clark's unique predisposition to view the black race as beautiful. 10Anti-Semite? chapter abstractThis chapter explores the theory of some Clark critics that he is anti-Semitic. It delves into his controversial representations of reputed Nazi war criminals Karl Linnas and Jack Reimer, as well as his longstanding association with and representation of the PLO, including his defense of the organization in the infamous lawsuit stemming from the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled American Jew, by Palestinian terrorists. Apart from Clark's participation in these matters, he has also taken some controversial supportive positions that seem to go beyond what one would expect in a pure attorney–client relationship. The chapter analyzes and questions the claims of anti-Semitism after discussing details of some of Clark's contentious associations. In this regard, it casts doubt on the pejorative label by examining parallels between similar affiliations, such as his representation of the Branch Davidians and his involvement with other demonized individuals and groups. 11Saddam Hussein chapter abstractThis chapter centers around what has to be Clark's most controversial representation—that of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The chapter examines why Clark would choose to defend Hussein and tests the widely held view that this particular client choice confirms that Clark is simply unpatriotic and anti-American. As the chapter reveals, Clark has represented a number of international clients and causes that could be characterized as siding with America's enemy, including inserting himself into the 1980 Iran hostage crisis and suing President Ronald Reagan, among others, on behalf of a number of Libyan residents in the aftermath of the U.S.-led bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. Most notably, Clark installed himself as counsel for notorious Rwandan Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic. The chapter suggests that Clark's motivations for representing these individuals are far more complex than most believe. 12Cold Pizza chapter abstractThis chapter delves more deeply into Ramsey Clark's personal qualities, especially his unassuming nature and utter lack of concern with the accumulation of wealth. It begins by exploring the extraordinarily close relationship between Clark and his wife Georgia, and it emphasizes the enormous contribution that she made in her own right, as well as to her husband's ambitions. She was a remarkable woman, and without her, much of what Clark accomplished would not have been possible. The chapter also recounts a very revealing episode regarding Clark's law school classmate and dear friend George Anastaplo. Most importantly, the chapter examines Clark's relationship with his daughter Ronda and the pivotal effect that she undeniably has had upon her father. His empathy for and love of people who are less fortunate most assuredly was inspired, at least in part, by lessons that Clark learned from his daughter. 13Like Father, Like Son chapter abstractThis chapter compares and contrasts Ramsey Clark with his equally famous father Tom Clark. Tom and Ramsey are the only father and son to have held the post of U.S. attorney general, which turns out to be but one of a number of telling similarities between the two men. Tom, who would culminate his career in public service as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, was viewed as politically conservative. As such, most would presume that he could not have been more different than his ultra-liberal son. The chapter reveals the fallacy of this assumption by chronicling examples where their social views coincided—most significantly, in the area of civil rights. To be sure, Tom and Ramsey were different in many respects, and the chapter addresses these distinctions. It also explores the nature of their somewhat complex father–son relationship, as well as the internal dynamics of their respective families. Conclusion: "Carry On . . . and Kick Up Some Dust" chapter abstractThe Conclusion reflects on the entirety of Ramsey Clark's life journey, focusing on his 90th birthday celebration and the screening of a documentary about him by filmmaker Joseph Stillman titled "Citizen Clark . . . A Life of Principle." The chapter emphasizes the enormous complexity and contradictory nature of Clark's life, which have led some to view him as heroic and unfailingly goodhearted and others to conclude that he is unpatriotic and evil. Most, however, are completely unfamiliar with him, oblivious to the critical role he played in countless historical episodes. He is a true enigma—a nonviolent, fearless, self-deprecating defender of those whom society has been conditioned to recognize as enemies. There is simply no way to reconcile all of the incongruities in his life journey, and this is what makes Clark so fascinating and why it is essential for the world to know his story.

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Book SynopsisThis book traces American writers' contributions and responses to the War on Poverty. Its title comes from the 1964 Opportunity Act, which established a network of federally funded Community Action Agencies that encouraged "maximum feasible participation" by the poor. With this phrase, the Johnson administration provided its imprimatur for an emerging model of professionalism that sought to eradicate boundaries between professionals and their clients—a model that appealed to writers, especially African Americans and Chicanos/as associated with the cultural nationalisms gaining traction in the inner cities. These writers privileged artistic process over product, rejecting conventions that separated writers from their audiences. "Participatory professionalism," however, drew on a social scientific conception of poverty that proved to be the paradigm's undoing: the culture of poverty thesis popularized by Oscar Lewis, Michael Harrington, and Daniel Moynihan. For writers and policy experts associated with the War on Poverty, this thesis described the cultural gap that they hoped to close. Instead, it eventually led to the dismantling of the welfare state. Ranging from the 1950s to the present, the book explores how writers like Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Alice Walker, Philip Roth, and others exposed the War on Poverty's contradictions during its heyday and kept its legacy alive in the decades that followed.Trade Review"The works analyzed here—many of which I have taught often and know well—come alive in new ways as Stephen Schryer puts them in conversation with each other and with their historical era. Here's one reliable sign of success: I am sure that I will read these texts differently from now on." -- Carlo Rotella * Boston College *"Stephen Schryer introduces new research into the literature of poverty, demonstrating how a generation of writers engaged with the ideals and problems of welfare-state liberalism. Well-written and wide-ranging, his book shows that confronting poverty alters literary discourse, just as it fractures assumptions based on cultural identity and political sensibility." -- Gavin Jones * Stanford University *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Maximum Feasible Participation chapter abstractFocusing on the African American poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), the Introduction explores links between 1950s and 1960s process literature and the Community Action Program. Baraka's Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School (BARTS) was funded through the War on Poverty, and his version of process art fulfilled the participatory requirements of the Community Action Program. Both Baraka and many welfare activists allied with the Community Action Program also drew on a binary conception of class culture popularized by the post–World War II counterculture and liberal social science. This binary conception produced two figures that alternately incited and frustrated literary and social work efforts to bridge the gap between the middle class and the poor: the juvenile delinquent and the welfare mother. 1Jack Kerouac's Delinquent Art chapter abstractThis chapter puts the Beat writer Jack Kerouac in conversation with 1950s sociologists and psychologists interested in juvenile delinquency. These social scientists used the delinquent to develop ideas that would culminate in the class culture paradigm of the 1960s. Kerouac's fiction prefigures this paradigm, drawing on the work of Oswald Spengler to distinguish between lower-class minority and middle-class white cultures in the United States. In autobiographical novels like Maggie Cassidy, On the Road, and Dr. Sax, Kerouac imagines the delinquent as a self-divided figure, alienated from the traditional lower class and unable to adapt to the new demands of the rising professional class. His version of process art replicates this division, offering its readers a failed synthesis of middlebrow and avant-garde literature. 2Black Arts and the Great Society chapter abstractThis chapter discusses two Black Arts writers who benefited from War on Poverty patronage: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Gwendolyn Brooks. In The System of Dante's Hell and In the Mecca, the two writers developed distinct versions of participatory art. Like much of Baraka's Beat-period work, The System of Dante's Hell thematizes his dissatisfaction with the white counterculture and desire to create art that could connect him with black urban audiences. However, the novel draws on the counterculture's essentialist conception of lower-class culture in ways that would continue to shape Baraka's cultural nationalist output of the late 1960s. In contrast, Brooks's In the Mecca rejects the immersive drama that defines Baraka's Black Arts. Inspired by her Community Action Program–sponsored work with Chicago's Blackstone Rangers, the collection insists that minority poets use the resources of poetic form to achieve a calibrated distance from their lower-class subjects. 3Legal Services and the Cockroach Revolution chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on the Chicano writer and lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta, whose novels, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and Revolt of the Cockroach People, chart his transformation into a radical lawyer for Los Angeles's Brown Power Movement. Acosta began his career with Legal Services, a network of War on Poverty–funded Legal Aid offices. When he turned to movement activism, he radicalized Legal Services' demand that lawyers use their expertise to challenge laws that work against the interest of their lower-class clients. This demand became central to Acosta's version of process art. At the same time, Acosta's work replicates gender biases that ran throughout the War on Poverty. His political turn entailed his rejection of welfare mothers as clients in favor of militant young men—a turn that paralleled the War on Poverty's focus on male delinquents. 4Writing Urban Crisis after Moynihan chapter abstractThis chapter explores literary responses to the late 1960s crisis in participatory professionalism, provoked by the period's race riots and by conservatives' successful appropriation of liberal poverty discourse. The chapter focuses on two texts that address the Community Action Program: Joyce Carol Oates's them and Tom Wolfe's Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. While these texts voice opposing political positions, both distrust white liberal efforts to speak for the ghetto, drawing on traditions of urban writing (naturalism and literary journalism) that resist the process imperative to break down barriers between author, audience, and lower-class subject matter. At the same time, both writers complicate their literary objectivity by incorporating aspects of the very participatory professionalism they seek to delimit. 5Civil Rights and the Southern Folk Aesthetic chapter abstractThis chapter explores the persistence of community action as an ideal in post-1960s black feminist fiction, focusing on Alice Walker's Meridian and Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters. Both writers began their careers as social workers associated with War on Poverty programs; both were also influenced by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's version of community action, implemented during the 1964 Freedom Summer. In their novels, Walker and Bambara explore the legacy of the civil rights movement, focusing on intraracial class divisions that community action was supposed to suture. In both novels, these divisions turn out to be ineradicable, and their persistence marks the Southern folk aesthetic—the influential version of process art that Walker, Bambara, and other black feminist writers created in the 1970s. 6Who Belongs in the University? chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on Philip Roth's late 1990s novel, The Human Stain, arguing that the novel draws an analogy between the university and the Democratic Party. In early War on Poverty–era novels like Portnoy's Complaint, Roth developed an antiprocess conception of art and welfare politics, one that conceived of works of art and public institutions as products that require audiences to appreciate them on their own terms. In The Human Stain, Roth extends this conception to the postmodern academy, using it to criticize multicultural education and affirmative action. Linking the university and New Deal liberal coalition, Roth insists that both are under assault by cultural and ideological outsiders. This analogy leads Roth to embrace a strategic conservatism, one that echoes the politics of Bill Clinton, whose impeachment trial recurs throughout The Human Stain. Conclusion: Working-Class Community Action chapter abstractThe Conclusion sums up ongoing anxieties about lower-class cultural difference in the wake of Donald Trump's electoral victory, exploring the notion that the rural white working class inhabits an alternative culture hostile toward expert knowledge. The Conclusion develops this notion through a reading of Carolyn Chute's The School on Heart's Content Road and Treat Us like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves. In these fictions, Chute imagines an educational co-op that creates working-class experts, bypassing the division between professionals and lower-class clients that marked the Community Action Program. Chute embodies this notion of working-class expertise in the novels' form; she presents them as alternative histories, accessible to nonexpert reading practices. However, the novels replicate the War on Poverty–era notion of class culture, which cannot be eradicated without exterminating the tribal consciousness of working-class Maine.

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Book SynopsisThe end of World War II heralded a new global order. Decolonization swept the world and the United Nations, founded in 1945, came to embody the hopes of the world's colonized people as an instrument of freedom. North Africa became a particularly contested region and events there reverberated around the world. In Morocco, the emerging nationalist movement developed social networks that spanned three continents and engaged supporters from CIA agents, British journalists, and Asian diplomats to a Coca-Cola manager and a former First Lady. Globalizing Morocco traces how these networks helped the nationalists achieve independence—and then enabled the establishment of an authoritarian monarchy that persists today. David Stenner tells the story of the Moroccan activists who managed to sway world opinion against the French and Spanish colonial authorities to gain independence, and in so doing illustrates how they contributed to the formation of international relations during the early Cold War. Looking at post-1945 world politics from the Moroccan vantage point, we can see fissures in the global order that allowed the peoples of Africa and Asia to influence a hierarchical system whose main purpose had been to keep them at the bottom. In the process, these anticolonial networks created an influential new model for transnational activism that remains relevant still to contemporary struggles. Trade Review"David Stenner's sophisticated study of the Moroccan nationalists' social-political international network innovates the conversation on modern Middle Eastern and decolonization history. This rich story reflects the all-out pragmatism of the Moroccans, and culminates in an ironic twist when the nationalists' network is turned into a domestic liability. A great, well-argued read." -- Cyrus Schayegh, The Graduate Institute * Geneva *"David Stenner's book is the best transnational history of Moroccan independence I've ever read, including work in French and Arabic. Globalizing Morocco is as deep as it is easy to read. A masterful success." -- Maâti Monjib, University of Mohammed V * Rabat *"David Stenner locates Moroccan nationalists at the vanguard of what would become a worldwide movement of anti-colonial revolutionaries—a full decade before the conference at Bandung, Moroccan activists navigated the global circuits of the Cold War world in pursuit of sovereignty.Globalizing Morocco is an important contribution to the new Cold War history and the history of decolonization." -- Paul Thomas Chamberlin * Columbia University *"Stenner's book is a great contribution to the research fields of anticolonialism and the history of decolonization. It confirms the multi-layered and multiplayer nature of anticolonial politics and the respective transition processes leading to the postcolonial period. It also provides interesting examples of how to use network approaches and Digital Humanities tools to deal with that complexity." -- Ana Moledo * H-Soz-Kult *"Stenner masterfully situates the [Moroccan] independence movement within the context of the rise of NATO, the UN, and the Arab League....this study offers an integrated, balanced account of the Moroccan nationalist movement situated within international events of the global 1940s and 1950s. Highly recommended." -- J. Tallon * CHOICE *"David Stenner's masterful new history of the Moroccan independence movement....delivers on virtually all fronts.The writing is lucid, argumentative, and focused on a few key arguments. It includes several never before seen photographs of the era. The source base reflects research in a truly impressive number of archives." -- Ann Marie Wainscott * H-Diplo *"Stenner's enticing book is about the globalizing strategy of the anticolonial struggle and it succeeds in masterfully showing the international networks of supporters that closely cooperated with Istiqlal and the nationalist movement.[An] important contribution to the history of nationalism in Morocco, especially to US-Moroccan history." -- Blanca Camps-Febrer * E-International Relations *"The originality of the study, the rigorous methodology developed by social network analysis, and the extensive use of sources in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, most of them traced to an impressive number of archives in Morocco, France, Spain, England, and United States, make Stenner's book a remarkable work....[Globalizing Morocco] makes an important contribution to the existing literature on Moroccan nationalism and the history of decolonization, introducing new and stimulating perspectives and results." -- Barbara De Poli * Bustan *"By introducing a novel way of thinking about the Moroccan anticolonial struggle that draws upon transnational network analysis, Stenner recovers an overlooked history....Stenner has written an excellent book that deserves serious consideration from all historians interested in anticolonial movements." -- Etty Terem * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Networked Anticolonial Activism chapter abstractThis chapter introduces the reader to the history of colonial Morocco and the nationalist movement before engaging with the scholarship on decolonization and the early Cold War. It specifically explores the following issues: How did the Moroccan nationalists successfully internationalize their call for an independent constitutional monarchy? How did they communicate their message abroad? What role did their transnational activism have on the process of state-formation following the end of the French and Spanish protectorates in 1956? In order to answer these questions, the chapter engages with social network analysis to demonstrate how Sultan Mohamed ben Youssef managed to weaken the political opposition after independence by co-opting the central players behind their international anticolonial campaign. The monarch thereby obtained the pivotal social and human capital necessary to secure the hegemony of the Alaoui royal family. 1Tangier: Gateway to the World chapter abstractThis chapter describes how the Moroccans made Tangier the central hub of their transnational advocacy campaign. In April 1951, the country's four anticolonial parties signed the National Pact to coordinate their activities on the exterior. Benefiting from the international city's unique legal status, they facilitated the flow of information and resources between the two protectorates and their propaganda offices abroad. Several US businessmen and the American Federation of Labor supported their activities against the explicit will of the US State Department. Moreover, the Moroccans recruited a couple of English journalists visiting the northern port city and thereby managed to bring their message to the Anglophone world. 2Cairo: The Search for Arab Solidarity chapter abstractThis chapter deals with the first Moroccan delegates to the Arab League in 1946, who eventually cofounded the Office of the Arab Maghrib together with activists from Algeria and Tunisia. Despite several setbacks, the North African nationalists achieved a series of impressive publicity successes that attracted the attention of the Islamic world at a time when most Arabs remained predominantly concerned with the issue of Palestine. But their campaign came to an abrupt halt when the Free Officers overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in July 1952 and established a revolutionary republic. Despite its public embrace of Pan-Arabism, the new regime undermined the Moroccan nationalists' activities in the Middle East by destabilizing their local network of supporters. The Arab League thus failed to provide substantive diplomatic support to the Moroccan campaign for independence. 3Paris: Conquering the Metropole chapter abstractThis chapter describes the nationalist propaganda activities in Paris following World War II. Organized around the Bureau du Parti de l'Istiqlal and supported by the large local community of Moroccan workers and students, the nationalists convinced many French elites of their demands. A heterogeneous alliance of both leftist politicians and Catholic intellectuals helped them bring the case of Morocco to public attention in the wake of a massacre committed by French troops in Casablanca in December 1952. The nationalists also lobbied the UN General Assembly, which met in Paris in 1948 and 1951, but without great success. Nonetheless, by the fall of 1955, a majority of delegates in the National Assembly opposed a continuation of the protectorate regime. 4New York: Capital of Diplomacy chapter abstractThis chapter examines how the nationalist movement sent its first delegate on a temporary assignment to the United Nations in 1947, where he created a large network of contacts in the corridors of the UN building in Lake Placid and drew considerable attention to the Moroccan case. By 1952, the anticolonial activists finally opened their permanent bureau, the Moroccan Office of Information and Documentation, in New York. Supported by their British mentor Rom Landau, they lobbied the American public and politicians as well as the diplomatic delegations to the UN through personal contacts and an elaborate media campaign. Deeply worried by these achievements, France conducted counterpropaganda to undermine their efforts. Although neither the Truman nor the Eisenhower administration openly embraced their demands, the Moroccans' activism in the United States put great international pressure on the government in Paris. 5Rabat: The Homecoming chapter abstractThis chapter deals with the process of state-formation after independence in 1956, which culminated in a power struggle between the royal palace and the Istiqlal Party. The now-king Mohamed V managed to co-opt the central nodes of the nationalist movement's transnational network of supporters by recruiting many of its members to work for the royal palace or sending them abroad as ambassadors. He thereby increased the social capital at his disposal while simultaneously weakening the Istiqlal. Even the nationalists' foreign associates now publicly embraced the monarch and thus legitimized his status. His successful state visit to the United States in November 1957 symbolized the triumph of the king, who had replaced the nationalist movement as the sole representative of the Moroccan nation. Conclusion: Decolonization Reconsidered chapter abstractThe conclusion discusses the larger insights gained from studying the history of the Moroccan liberation struggle. It reevaluates the process of decolonization by looking at the continuities between the colonial era and the postcolonial state. Moreover, it emphasizes the important roles played by nonstate actors in the making of the post-1945 international order despite the constraints imposed on them by the binary logic of the Cold War. Finally, it demonstrates that the pro-Western foreign policy pursued by the Moroccans after 1956 resulted from the nationalist movement's global campaign for independence. The legacy of the propaganda offices in New York, Cairo, and Paris thus continues to shape the North African kingdom today.

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Book SynopsisFew places are as politically precarious as Bangladesh, even fewer as crowded. Its 57,000 or so square miles are some of the world's most inhabited. Often described as a definitive case of the bankruptcy of postcolonial governance, it is also one of the poorest among the most densely populated nations. In spite of an overriding anxiety of exhaustion, there are a few important caveats to the familiar feelings of despair—a growing economy, and an uneven, yet robust, nationalist sentiment—which, together, generate revealing paradoxes. In this book, Nusrat Sabina Chowdhury offers insight into what she calls "the paradoxes of the popular," or the constitutive contradictions of popular politics. The focus here is on mass protests, long considered the primary medium of meaningful change in this part of the world. Chowdhury writes provocatively about political life in Bangladesh in a rich ethnography that studies some of the most consequential protests of the last decade, spanning both rural and urban Bangladesh. By making the crowd its starting point and analytical locus, this book tacks between multiple sites of public political gatherings and pays attention to the ephemeral and often accidental configurations of the crowd. Ultimately, Chowdhury makes an original case for the crowd as a defining feature and a foundational force of democratic practices in South Asia and beyond.Trade Review"Richly ethnographic, this study of an environmental movement in Bangladesh takes a fresh and contemporary look at the role of the crowd in democratic politics, distinguishing it from the citizen and the people. Focusing on such everyday phenomena as money, ID cards, accidents, and social media, Nusrat Chowdhury provides unusual glimpses into emotions such as hope, despair, opportunism, and fear that animate crowds assembled for political action." -- Partha Chatterjee * Columbia University *"Theorists of democracy and public life have long been unsettled by the unstable energy of popular assemblies—their capacity both to destroy and create, to betray authority and imagine it anew. Chowdhury's bold, compelling analysis, in contrast, puts the paradoxical power of the street at the center of Bangladeshi history: the spontaneous crowd, she shows, is the very embodiment of popular sovereignty, conjuring the volatile fervor and the 'imperceptible politics' that fuel mass democracy, not only in South Asia, but way beyond." -- Jean Comaroff * Harvard University *"Chowdhury's fascinating ethnography of popular protest in Bangladesh will resonate far beyond her home discipline of anthropology. Paradoxes of the Popular makes an essential contribution to the study of crowd politics in the international contexts of modern mass democracy." -- Jason Frank, Robert J. Katz Chair of Government * Cornell University *"[Paradoxes of the Popular] introduces readers to a novel theoretical terrain, and notions such as the 'imperceptible politics' of mass protests and the act of 'seeing like a crowd' force a reappraisal of anthropological approaches to 'public' life and space. In an era of rising populism, Chowdhury's ethnography has much to offer scholars interested in mass democracy and its inherent paradoxes in South Asia and beyond. Highly recommended." -- E. R. Swenson * CHOICE *"[A] especially rich ethnography of the political....Paradoxes of the Popular shows how mass feelings (from fear and despair to joy and possibility) become political, and how the political (from notions of democracy to demagoguery) is conceptualized in the everyday. The book will be of special interest to scholars and graduate students interested in contemporary Bangladesh, South Asian democracies, and political anthropology more generally." -- Rashmi Sadana * Political and Legal Aanthropology Review *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThis chapter introduces the idea of "paradox" to make sense of the contingencies that make up Bangladesh's political modernity as well as the constitutive paradoxes of popular sovereignty. I introduce the Bangla term janata as a vernacular iteration of the concept of the crowd of social and political theory. Drawing on literary representations and scholarly work, the chapter shows why the crowd is the ethnographic object and analytical locus of the book. It sets the theoretical and conceptual stage for locating in the crowd the energy, agency, and indeterminacy of mass politics. 1Picture-Thinking chapter abstractIn chapter 1, I analyze a set of public texts in circulation during a state of emergency—letters published in newspapers, a national identification card, a controversial photograph. Doing so has two ends: First, the chapter expands on the impasse that South Asian democracies often experience when confronting the relationship between sovereignty and citizenship. In this logic, a repressive and undemocratic governmental apparatus is blamed for the underdeveloped political rationality of its citizens. For the same reason, sovereignty as domination is justified as a way to protect the masses from their own nature. Second, the chapter expounds on the presumed distinctions between a reading public versus unruly crowds. The letters written by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize–winning "guru of micro credit," remind us how the distinction between the stranger/citizen and an embodied crowd was mobilized at this time so as to usher in a novel era in politics. 2Seeing Like a Crowd chapter abstractAgainst the backdrop of the transparency fetish of the emergency, Phulbari's protest culture presents an alternative politics of seeing—what I describe as "seeing like a crowd." By identifying the significance of money in aesthetic productions and political acts, I show how the preoccupation with money differed from the nationwide drive against corruption. The chapter focuses first on a painting by a Phulbari artist. I argue that its message contrasts with the viciously apolitical desire for efficiency and good governance in a globally recognized language of neoliberal transparency. I then present the recollections of a socially marginalized woman who became the face of grassroots mobilization. I situate the looting and burning of money by the crowds within the larger context of the national political crisis. These popular strategies were a form of a transparency-making enterprise, if only with different political effect than the anticorruption agenda of the state. 3Accidental Politics chapter abstractChapter 3 is an ethnographic account of the accidental, the contingent, and the imperceptible nature of crowd politics. To understand the political possibilities of accidents and to assess their ethnographic significance, in this chapter I approach accidents both literally and conceptually. Can accidents be political? What kinds of politics take shape in the wake of an accident? And what are the ethico-political possibilities that are made available, or are foreclosed, within various discourses of the accidental? Anthropological perspectives on accidents, I argue in this chapter, rescue the concept from its usual modernist and technicist moorings while opening up spaces of radical contingencies that are enframed in local logics of culture and politics. 4Crowds and Collaborators chapter abstractCollaboration, in the sense of working for the enemy and benefiting from it, has given rise to a particular kind of crowd politics. From the vantage point of most protesters, a collaborator (dalal) was a figure that straddled the boundaries of the community and whatever stood beyond it. A dalal was by definition a local, though his ties to the foreign were exposed through suspicion, gossip, jokes, and assaults. Chapter 4 examines this culture of accusation of collaboration in order to illuminate the entangled effects of aggressive resource extraction, collective sovereignty, and popular and state-initiated attempts at settling the score with the nation's past. Following Walter Benjamin's writing on the "intriguer" and scholarly interest in the "neighbor," I submit that the dalal is a third type that disturbs the duality of friend and enemy. This ambivalence produces a culture of doubt and suspicion that demands certainty, often through violence. 5The Body of the Crowd chapter abstractChapter 5 is located in post-emergency Bangladesh. Its primary sites are spaces of politics and activism that are both emergent and historically poignant. I explore a particular fascination with the body and its relationship to crowd politics in the context of protests against the International Crimes Tribunal. The chapter comments on the proliferation of technologies that has impacted social and political communication. Increased surveillance in public spaces indicates more rigorous efforts to control spaces and bodies, illustrated by two events I analyze: an exposé of public sexual harassment and a viral video of a public lynching. On the one hand, I argue, secular and religious crowds, in their desires to be seen and heard, often end up mirroring each other. On the other hand, individual social media users often act collectively, performing the excess and volatility associated with crowds. Conclusion chapter abstractIn August 2017, the Supreme Court's Appellate Division released the text of a verdict that scrapped the sixteenth constitutional amendment. Passed in 2014, the amendment gave Parliament the power to remove Supreme Court judges for misconduct or incapacity. After it went public, Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha faced the wrath of politicians and party loyalists. "No nation, no country is made of or by one person," Sinha wrote in a judgment partly aimed at salvaging the collectivity that played a formative role in achieving national independence. This single line was excerpted and disparate meanings were tagged onto it in order to cast Sinha as disloyal. The fact that his relatively straightforward commitment to a normative assumption of liberal democracy was enough to cost him his job reveals a heightened role of paranoia in Bangladeshi politics. Indeed, it has raised anew the paradoxes of popular sovereignty and political representation in Bangladesh.

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Book SynopsisThe end of World War II heralded a new global order. Decolonization swept the world and the United Nations, founded in 1945, came to embody the hopes of the world's colonized people as an instrument of freedom. North Africa became a particularly contested region and events there reverberated around the world. In Morocco, the emerging nationalist movement developed social networks that spanned three continents and engaged supporters from CIA agents, British journalists, and Asian diplomats to a Coca-Cola manager and a former First Lady. Globalizing Morocco traces how these networks helped the nationalists achieve independence—and then enabled the establishment of an authoritarian monarchy that persists today. David Stenner tells the story of the Moroccan activists who managed to sway world opinion against the French and Spanish colonial authorities to gain independence, and in so doing illustrates how they contributed to the formation of international relations during the early Cold War. Looking at post-1945 world politics from the Moroccan vantage point, we can see fissures in the global order that allowed the peoples of Africa and Asia to influence a hierarchical system whose main purpose had been to keep them at the bottom. In the process, these anticolonial networks created an influential new model for transnational activism that remains relevant still to contemporary struggles. Trade Review"David Stenner's sophisticated study of the Moroccan nationalists' social-political international network innovates the conversation on modern Middle Eastern and decolonization history. This rich story reflects the all-out pragmatism of the Moroccans, and culminates in an ironic twist when the nationalists' network is turned into a domestic liability. A great, well-argued read." -- Cyrus Schayegh, The Graduate Institute * Geneva *"David Stenner's book is the best transnational history of Moroccan independence I've ever read, including work in French and Arabic. Globalizing Morocco is as deep as it is easy to read. A masterful success." -- Maâti Monjib, University of Mohammed V * Rabat *"David Stenner locates Moroccan nationalists at the vanguard of what would become a worldwide movement of anti-colonial revolutionaries—a full decade before the conference at Bandung, Moroccan activists navigated the global circuits of the Cold War world in pursuit of sovereignty.Globalizing Morocco is an important contribution to the new Cold War history and the history of decolonization." -- Paul Thomas Chamberlin * Columbia University *"Stenner's book is a great contribution to the research fields of anticolonialism and the history of decolonization. It confirms the multi-layered and multiplayer nature of anticolonial politics and the respective transition processes leading to the postcolonial period. It also provides interesting examples of how to use network approaches and Digital Humanities tools to deal with that complexity." -- Ana Moledo * H-Soz-Kult *"Stenner masterfully situates the [Moroccan] independence movement within the context of the rise of NATO, the UN, and the Arab League....this study offers an integrated, balanced account of the Moroccan nationalist movement situated within international events of the global 1940s and 1950s. Highly recommended." -- J. Tallon * CHOICE *"David Stenner's masterful new history of the Moroccan independence movement....delivers on virtually all fronts.The writing is lucid, argumentative, and focused on a few key arguments. It includes several never before seen photographs of the era. The source base reflects research in a truly impressive number of archives." -- Ann Marie Wainscott * H-Diplo *"Stenner's enticing book is about the globalizing strategy of the anticolonial struggle and it succeeds in masterfully showing the international networks of supporters that closely cooperated with Istiqlal and the nationalist movement.[An] important contribution to the history of nationalism in Morocco, especially to US-Moroccan history." -- Blanca Camps-Febrer * E-International Relations *"The originality of the study, the rigorous methodology developed by social network analysis, and the extensive use of sources in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, most of them traced to an impressive number of archives in Morocco, France, Spain, England, and United States, make Stenner's book a remarkable work....[Globalizing Morocco] makes an important contribution to the existing literature on Moroccan nationalism and the history of decolonization, introducing new and stimulating perspectives and results." -- Barbara De Poli * Bustan *"By introducing a novel way of thinking about the Moroccan anticolonial struggle that draws upon transnational network analysis, Stenner recovers an overlooked history....Stenner has written an excellent book that deserves serious consideration from all historians interested in anticolonial movements." -- Etty Terem * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Networked Anticolonial Activism chapter abstractThis chapter introduces the reader to the history of colonial Morocco and the nationalist movement before engaging with the scholarship on decolonization and the early Cold War. It specifically explores the following issues: How did the Moroccan nationalists successfully internationalize their call for an independent constitutional monarchy? How did they communicate their message abroad? What role did their transnational activism have on the process of state-formation following the end of the French and Spanish protectorates in 1956? In order to answer these questions, the chapter engages with social network analysis to demonstrate how Sultan Mohamed ben Youssef managed to weaken the political opposition after independence by co-opting the central players behind their international anticolonial campaign. The monarch thereby obtained the pivotal social and human capital necessary to secure the hegemony of the Alaoui royal family. 1Tangier: Gateway to the World chapter abstractThis chapter describes how the Moroccans made Tangier the central hub of their transnational advocacy campaign. In April 1951, the country's four anticolonial parties signed the National Pact to coordinate their activities on the exterior. Benefiting from the international city's unique legal status, they facilitated the flow of information and resources between the two protectorates and their propaganda offices abroad. Several US businessmen and the American Federation of Labor supported their activities against the explicit will of the US State Department. Moreover, the Moroccans recruited a couple of English journalists visiting the northern port city and thereby managed to bring their message to the Anglophone world. 2Cairo: The Search for Arab Solidarity chapter abstractThis chapter deals with the first Moroccan delegates to the Arab League in 1946, who eventually cofounded the Office of the Arab Maghrib together with activists from Algeria and Tunisia. Despite several setbacks, the North African nationalists achieved a series of impressive publicity successes that attracted the attention of the Islamic world at a time when most Arabs remained predominantly concerned with the issue of Palestine. But their campaign came to an abrupt halt when the Free Officers overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in July 1952 and established a revolutionary republic. Despite its public embrace of Pan-Arabism, the new regime undermined the Moroccan nationalists' activities in the Middle East by destabilizing their local network of supporters. The Arab League thus failed to provide substantive diplomatic support to the Moroccan campaign for independence. 3Paris: Conquering the Metropole chapter abstractThis chapter describes the nationalist propaganda activities in Paris following World War II. Organized around the Bureau du Parti de l'Istiqlal and supported by the large local community of Moroccan workers and students, the nationalists convinced many French elites of their demands. A heterogeneous alliance of both leftist politicians and Catholic intellectuals helped them bring the case of Morocco to public attention in the wake of a massacre committed by French troops in Casablanca in December 1952. The nationalists also lobbied the UN General Assembly, which met in Paris in 1948 and 1951, but without great success. Nonetheless, by the fall of 1955, a majority of delegates in the National Assembly opposed a continuation of the protectorate regime. 4New York: Capital of Diplomacy chapter abstractThis chapter examines how the nationalist movement sent its first delegate on a temporary assignment to the United Nations in 1947, where he created a large network of contacts in the corridors of the UN building in Lake Placid and drew considerable attention to the Moroccan case. By 1952, the anticolonial activists finally opened their permanent bureau, the Moroccan Office of Information and Documentation, in New York. Supported by their British mentor Rom Landau, they lobbied the American public and politicians as well as the diplomatic delegations to the UN through personal contacts and an elaborate media campaign. Deeply worried by these achievements, France conducted counterpropaganda to undermine their efforts. Although neither the Truman nor the Eisenhower administration openly embraced their demands, the Moroccans' activism in the United States put great international pressure on the government in Paris. 5Rabat: The Homecoming chapter abstractThis chapter deals with the process of state-formation after independence in 1956, which culminated in a power struggle between the royal palace and the Istiqlal Party. The now-king Mohamed V managed to co-opt the central nodes of the nationalist movement's transnational network of supporters by recruiting many of its members to work for the royal palace or sending them abroad as ambassadors. He thereby increased the social capital at his disposal while simultaneously weakening the Istiqlal. Even the nationalists' foreign associates now publicly embraced the monarch and thus legitimized his status. His successful state visit to the United States in November 1957 symbolized the triumph of the king, who had replaced the nationalist movement as the sole representative of the Moroccan nation. Conclusion: Decolonization Reconsidered chapter abstractThe conclusion discusses the larger insights gained from studying the history of the Moroccan liberation struggle. It reevaluates the process of decolonization by looking at the continuities between the colonial era and the postcolonial state. Moreover, it emphasizes the important roles played by nonstate actors in the making of the post-1945 international order despite the constraints imposed on them by the binary logic of the Cold War. Finally, it demonstrates that the pro-Western foreign policy pursued by the Moroccans after 1956 resulted from the nationalist movement's global campaign for independence. The legacy of the propaganda offices in New York, Cairo, and Paris thus continues to shape the North African kingdom today.

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Book SynopsisFew places are as politically precarious as Bangladesh, even fewer as crowded. Its 57,000 or so square miles are some of the world's most inhabited. Often described as a definitive case of the bankruptcy of postcolonial governance, it is also one of the poorest among the most densely populated nations. In spite of an overriding anxiety of exhaustion, there are a few important caveats to the familiar feelings of despair—a growing economy, and an uneven, yet robust, nationalist sentiment—which, together, generate revealing paradoxes. In this book, Nusrat Sabina Chowdhury offers insight into what she calls "the paradoxes of the popular," or the constitutive contradictions of popular politics. The focus here is on mass protests, long considered the primary medium of meaningful change in this part of the world. Chowdhury writes provocatively about political life in Bangladesh in a rich ethnography that studies some of the most consequential protests of the last decade, spanning both rural and urban Bangladesh. By making the crowd its starting point and analytical locus, this book tacks between multiple sites of public political gatherings and pays attention to the ephemeral and often accidental configurations of the crowd. Ultimately, Chowdhury makes an original case for the crowd as a defining feature and a foundational force of democratic practices in South Asia and beyond.Trade Review"Richly ethnographic, this study of an environmental movement in Bangladesh takes a fresh and contemporary look at the role of the crowd in democratic politics, distinguishing it from the citizen and the people. Focusing on such everyday phenomena as money, ID cards, accidents, and social media, Nusrat Chowdhury provides unusual glimpses into emotions such as hope, despair, opportunism, and fear that animate crowds assembled for political action." -- Partha Chatterjee * Columbia University *"Theorists of democracy and public life have long been unsettled by the unstable energy of popular assemblies—their capacity both to destroy and create, to betray authority and imagine it anew. Chowdhury's bold, compelling analysis, in contrast, puts the paradoxical power of the street at the center of Bangladeshi history: the spontaneous crowd, she shows, is the very embodiment of popular sovereignty, conjuring the volatile fervor and the 'imperceptible politics' that fuel mass democracy, not only in South Asia, but way beyond." -- Jean Comaroff * Harvard University *"Chowdhury's fascinating ethnography of popular protest in Bangladesh will resonate far beyond her home discipline of anthropology. Paradoxes of the Popular makes an essential contribution to the study of crowd politics in the international contexts of modern mass democracy." -- Jason Frank, Robert J. Katz Chair of Government * Cornell University *"[Paradoxes of the Popular] introduces readers to a novel theoretical terrain, and notions such as the 'imperceptible politics' of mass protests and the act of 'seeing like a crowd' force a reappraisal of anthropological approaches to 'public' life and space. In an era of rising populism, Chowdhury's ethnography has much to offer scholars interested in mass democracy and its inherent paradoxes in South Asia and beyond. Highly recommended." -- E. R. Swenson * CHOICE *"[A] especially rich ethnography of the political....Paradoxes of the Popular shows how mass feelings (from fear and despair to joy and possibility) become political, and how the political (from notions of democracy to demagoguery) is conceptualized in the everyday. The book will be of special interest to scholars and graduate students interested in contemporary Bangladesh, South Asian democracies, and political anthropology more generally." -- Rashmi Sadana * Political and Legal Aanthropology Review *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThis chapter introduces the idea of "paradox" to make sense of the contingencies that make up Bangladesh's political modernity as well as the constitutive paradoxes of popular sovereignty. I introduce the Bangla term janata as a vernacular iteration of the concept of the crowd of social and political theory. Drawing on literary representations and scholarly work, the chapter shows why the crowd is the ethnographic object and analytical locus of the book. It sets the theoretical and conceptual stage for locating in the crowd the energy, agency, and indeterminacy of mass politics. 1Picture-Thinking chapter abstractIn chapter 1, I analyze a set of public texts in circulation during a state of emergency—letters published in newspapers, a national identification card, a controversial photograph. Doing so has two ends: First, the chapter expands on the impasse that South Asian democracies often experience when confronting the relationship between sovereignty and citizenship. In this logic, a repressive and undemocratic governmental apparatus is blamed for the underdeveloped political rationality of its citizens. For the same reason, sovereignty as domination is justified as a way to protect the masses from their own nature. Second, the chapter expounds on the presumed distinctions between a reading public versus unruly crowds. The letters written by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize–winning "guru of micro credit," remind us how the distinction between the stranger/citizen and an embodied crowd was mobilized at this time so as to usher in a novel era in politics. 2Seeing Like a Crowd chapter abstractAgainst the backdrop of the transparency fetish of the emergency, Phulbari's protest culture presents an alternative politics of seeing—what I describe as "seeing like a crowd." By identifying the significance of money in aesthetic productions and political acts, I show how the preoccupation with money differed from the nationwide drive against corruption. The chapter focuses first on a painting by a Phulbari artist. I argue that its message contrasts with the viciously apolitical desire for efficiency and good governance in a globally recognized language of neoliberal transparency. I then present the recollections of a socially marginalized woman who became the face of grassroots mobilization. I situate the looting and burning of money by the crowds within the larger context of the national political crisis. These popular strategies were a form of a transparency-making enterprise, if only with different political effect than the anticorruption agenda of the state. 3Accidental Politics chapter abstractChapter 3 is an ethnographic account of the accidental, the contingent, and the imperceptible nature of crowd politics. To understand the political possibilities of accidents and to assess their ethnographic significance, in this chapter I approach accidents both literally and conceptually. Can accidents be political? What kinds of politics take shape in the wake of an accident? And what are the ethico-political possibilities that are made available, or are foreclosed, within various discourses of the accidental? Anthropological perspectives on accidents, I argue in this chapter, rescue the concept from its usual modernist and technicist moorings while opening up spaces of radical contingencies that are enframed in local logics of culture and politics. 4Crowds and Collaborators chapter abstractCollaboration, in the sense of working for the enemy and benefiting from it, has given rise to a particular kind of crowd politics. From the vantage point of most protesters, a collaborator (dalal) was a figure that straddled the boundaries of the community and whatever stood beyond it. A dalal was by definition a local, though his ties to the foreign were exposed through suspicion, gossip, jokes, and assaults. Chapter 4 examines this culture of accusation of collaboration in order to illuminate the entangled effects of aggressive resource extraction, collective sovereignty, and popular and state-initiated attempts at settling the score with the nation's past. Following Walter Benjamin's writing on the "intriguer" and scholarly interest in the "neighbor," I submit that the dalal is a third type that disturbs the duality of friend and enemy. This ambivalence produces a culture of doubt and suspicion that demands certainty, often through violence. 5The Body of the Crowd chapter abstractChapter 5 is located in post-emergency Bangladesh. Its primary sites are spaces of politics and activism that are both emergent and historically poignant. I explore a particular fascination with the body and its relationship to crowd politics in the context of protests against the International Crimes Tribunal. The chapter comments on the proliferation of technologies that has impacted social and political communication. Increased surveillance in public spaces indicates more rigorous efforts to control spaces and bodies, illustrated by two events I analyze: an exposé of public sexual harassment and a viral video of a public lynching. On the one hand, I argue, secular and religious crowds, in their desires to be seen and heard, often end up mirroring each other. On the other hand, individual social media users often act collectively, performing the excess and volatility associated with crowds. Conclusion chapter abstractIn August 2017, the Supreme Court's Appellate Division released the text of a verdict that scrapped the sixteenth constitutional amendment. Passed in 2014, the amendment gave Parliament the power to remove Supreme Court judges for misconduct or incapacity. After it went public, Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha faced the wrath of politicians and party loyalists. "No nation, no country is made of or by one person," Sinha wrote in a judgment partly aimed at salvaging the collectivity that played a formative role in achieving national independence. This single line was excerpted and disparate meanings were tagged onto it in order to cast Sinha as disloyal. The fact that his relatively straightforward commitment to a normative assumption of liberal democracy was enough to cost him his job reveals a heightened role of paranoia in Bangladeshi politics. Indeed, it has raised anew the paradoxes of popular sovereignty and political representation in Bangladesh.

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Book SynopsisRich, personal stories shed light on midwives at the frontier of women's reproductive rights. Midwives in the United States live and work in a complex regulatory environment that is a direct result of state and medical intervention into women's reproductive capacity. In Birthing a Movement, Renée Ann Cramer draws on over a decade of ethnographic and archival research to examine the interactions of law, politics, and activism surrounding midwifery care. Framed by gripping narratives from midwives across the country, she parses out the often-paradoxical priorities with which they must engage—seeking formal professionalization, advocating for reproductive justice, and resisting state-centered approaches. Currently, professional midwives are legal and regulated in their practice in 32 states and illegal in eight, where their practice could bring felony convictions and penalties that include imprisonment. In the remaining ten states, Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) are unregulated, but nominally legal. By studying states where CPMs have differing legal statuses, Cramer makes the case that midwives and their clients engage in various forms of mobilization—at times simultaneous, and at times inconsistent—to facilitate access to care, autonomy in childbirth, and the articulation of women's authority in reproduction. This book brings together literatures not frequently in conversation with one another, on regulation, mobilization, health policy, and gender, offering a multifaceted view of the experiences and politics of American midwifery, and promising rich insights to a wide array of scholars, activists, healthcare professionals alike. Trade Review"A beautifully written narrative weaving together passionate, sometimes harrowing stories from midwives, activists, and mothers. This book is a significant legal intervention and a brave, innovative, and sophisticated exploration." -- Eve Darian-Smith * University of California, Irvine *"Integrating an impressive array of qualitative data, rich personal stories, sophisticated theoretical analysis, exquisite writing, and a compassionate authorial voice, this splendid book is a great read and a major addition to the sociolegal scholarship on law and social movements." -- Michael McCann * University of Washington *"Engaging and compassionate. A must-read for every social movements scholar, it is written so as to be accessible and relevant to the undergraduate reader as well. Birthing a Movement is a book that I plan to cite and assign for years to come." -- Sarah Hampson * University of Washington *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Knowing About Legality and Illegality in Midwifery Care in the United States chapter abstractThe introduction tells the story of Gina, a midwife working illegally at the time of our interview. Using Gina's story as a frame of reference, the introduction explains the varying legal status for midwives in the United States and distinguishes certified professional midwives from other professionals who attend labor and delivery. The introduction also provides the theoretical and scholarly context for the rest of the book, focusing on legal pluralism, legal consciousness, legal mobilization, and the limits of law as it is implemented. Finally, the introduction explains my methodology in both researching and presenting the data and argues that we need to tell stories about law and society that are embodied, integrative, and holistic—much like the care provided by midwives to their clients. 1History and Status of Midwives in the United States chapter abstractChapter 1 begins with a story from Missouri after Ophelia, a certified professional midwife, attends a birth that brings her to the attention of the police. The chapter asks how we got to a place where a safe, qualified, trained birth attendant can fear prosecution for a good-outcome birth. The history of midwifery in the United States is one that combines medicalization and professionalization of birth, imperatives of nation-building through reproduction, and a renaissance in care that brought the profession of non-nurse midwifery back from the brink of extinction. Chapter 1 provides a version of that history, stressing that this version is the one told by advocates and midwives as they seek to expand access to care. 2Modern and Professional: Legitimating, Marketing, and Reimagining Midwives chapter abstractChapter 2 demonstrates that, in the name of professionalization, midwives have engaged in seeking legitimization of non-nurse midwifery via national organizations, 3Mostly Happy Accidents: Successfully Mobilizing for Legal Status chapter abstractChapter 3 explores the multiple ways that midwives and advocates use politics to mobilize for legal status. Focusing on the success stories in South Dakota and Missouri, it highlights how the long-term activism in both states, combined with "happy accidents" or contingencies, facilitated the passage of legalization bills. Midwives and advocates use traditional and social media, letter-writing to legislators, and consistent presence in the statehouse to get their bills passed. They also engage in novel attention-seeking activities like making quilts and calendars, designing T-shirts, and handing out M&M cookies (for "moms and midwives"). 4Rights, Rules, and Regulation chapter abstractThis chapter begins with the unusual story of how lawyers needed to defend the constitutionality of the Missouri bill against claims by the Missouri Medical Association, as a way to frame the examination the legal mobilization undertaken on behalf of midwives nationwide. This mobilization includes criminal defense of their practice and lawsuits brought on behalf of victims of obstetric violence. It also includes seeking regulatory governance in rulemaking, defining the scope of practice for midwives, and articulating access to the state as a goal for the movement. 5Catching Babies and Catching Hell: Constitutive Interactions in the Limits and Shadow of the Law chapter abstractChapter 5 examines the various ways that midwives experience their daily practices and finds that, even in states where they are legal and regulated, the law limits and shadows how CPMs work. This limiting of the law is related to cultural disapprobation of out-of-hospital birth and the ways that that disapprobation is reinforced by friends, family, and hospital staff. Chapter 5 shares the stories of midwives who find constraints on their practice from the expressions of these norms and details the difficulties they have finding insurance, finding back-up physicians, and even knowing what the law is. It also shares stories of midwives and mothers who "catch hell" when they discuss their out-of-hospital birth plans or must transfer a client to the hospital for emergency care. 6Deep Transformations, Deep Contradictions: Changing Birth Culture One Movie, One Picnic, One<3.>Tiny Little Epistemological Shift at a Time chapter abstractThis chapter examines the multiple ways that midwives and advocates seek to change birth culture in any given locale, from hosting movies and picnics to thinking through the proper role of hospital and state in labor and delivery. It moves from eco-feminist midwifery advocacy in Berkeley, California, to emergency childbirth classes in rural South Dakota, highlighting the ways that locale shapes approaches to thinking about midwifery care. Chapter 6 also focuses on the contradictions and tensions within the pro-midwifery movement—around issues like abortion, vaccination and homeschooling, rights-seeking, partisan politics, and the decision to seek government intervention and approval at all. The goal in all of these conversations is to facilitate expanded access to midwifery care and the extension of reproductive justice to all who labor and deliver. Conclusion: Attending to Birth in Sociolegal Scholarship: Embodied, Interdisciplinary, and Authoritative Knowledge chapter abstractThe conclusion offers closing thoughts on the relationship between disciplinarity and regulation—seeing both as simultaneously emancipatory and constraining. The conclusion examines the tensions within midwifery communities, and within sociolegal scholarship, and argues that sitting with those tensions in an embodied, interdisciplinary, authoritative epistemology is the way to do good work in both settings.

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Book SynopsisA unique investigation into how alliances form in highly polarized times among LGBTQ, immigrant, and labor rights activists, revealing the impacts within each rights movement. Queer Alliances investigates coalition formation among LGBTQ, immigrant, and labor rights activists in the United States, revealing how these new alliances impact political movement formation. In the early 2000s, the LGBTQ and immigrant rights movements operated separately from and, sometimes, in a hostile manner towards each other. Since 2008, by contrast, major alliances have formed at the national and state level across these communities. Yet, this new coalition formation came at a cost. Today, coalitions across these communities have been largely reluctant to address issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, economic inequality, and the ruthless immigrant regulatory complex. Queer Alliances examines the extent to which grassroots groups bridged historic divisions based on race, gender, class, and immigration status through the development of coalitions, looking specifically at coalition building around expanding LGBTQ rights in Washington State and immigrant and migrant rights in Arizona. Erin Mayo-Adam traces the evolution of political movement formation in each state, and shows that while the movements expanded, they simultaneously ossified around goals that matter to the most advantaged segments of their respective communities. Through a detailed, multi-method study that involves archival research and in-depth interviews with organization leaders and advocates, Queer Alliances centers local, coalition-based mobilization across and within multiple movements rather than national campaigns and court cases that often occur at the end of movement formation. Mayo-Adam argues that the construction of common political movement narratives and a shared core of opponents can help to explain the paradoxical effects of coalition formation. On the one hand, the development of shared political movement narratives and common opponents can expand movements in some contexts. On the other hand, the episodic nature of rights-based campaigns can simultaneously contain and undermine movement expansion, reinforcing movement divisions. Mayo-Adam reveals the extent to which inter- and intra-movement coalitions, formed to win rights or thwart rights losses, represent and serve intersectionally marginalized communities—who are often absent from contemporary accounts of social movement formation.Trade Review"In the real world, queer alliances come together and fall apart again and again. Erin Mayo-Adam's fascinating grassroots interviews show how these often uncontrolled and uncontrollable 'rights episodes' both empower and exploit sexually marginalized, vulnerable people. A must read for anyone interested in twenty-first century rights formation and the future of the LGBTQ movement." -- Susan Burgess * Ohio University *"Erin Mayo-Adam's compelling book paints an intimate portrait of how coalitions form and break down at the grassroots level. An essential read for those who study and participate in movements, Queer Alliances illustrates what makes social movements tick from a fresh perspective and explains how rights can both liberate people and reinstate hierarchies." -- Julie Novkov * University at Albany, SUNY *

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Book SynopsisA unique investigation into how alliances form in highly polarized times among LGBTQ, immigrant, and labor rights activists, revealing the impacts within each rights movement. Queer Alliances investigates coalition formation among LGBTQ, immigrant, and labor rights activists in the United States, revealing how these new alliances impact political movement formation. In the early 2000s, the LGBTQ and immigrant rights movements operated separately from and, sometimes, in a hostile manner towards each other. Since 2008, by contrast, major alliances have formed at the national and state level across these communities. Yet, this new coalition formation came at a cost. Today, coalitions across these communities have been largely reluctant to address issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, economic inequality, and the ruthless immigrant regulatory complex. Queer Alliances examines the extent to which grassroots groups bridged historic divisions based on race, gender, class, and immigration status through the development of coalitions, looking specifically at coalition building around expanding LGBTQ rights in Washington State and immigrant and migrant rights in Arizona. Erin Mayo-Adam traces the evolution of political movement formation in each state, and shows that while the movements expanded, they simultaneously ossified around goals that matter to the most advantaged segments of their respective communities. Through a detailed, multi-method study that involves archival research and in-depth interviews with organization leaders and advocates, Queer Alliances centers local, coalition-based mobilization across and within multiple movements rather than national campaigns and court cases that often occur at the end of movement formation. Mayo-Adam argues that the construction of common political movement narratives and a shared core of opponents can help to explain the paradoxical effects of coalition formation. On the one hand, the development of shared political movement narratives and common opponents can expand movements in some contexts. On the other hand, the episodic nature of rights-based campaigns can simultaneously contain and undermine movement expansion, reinforcing movement divisions. Mayo-Adam reveals the extent to which inter- and intra-movement coalitions, formed to win rights or thwart rights losses, represent and serve intersectionally marginalized communities—who are often absent from contemporary accounts of social movement formation.Trade Review"In the real world, queer alliances come together and fall apart again and again. Erin Mayo-Adam's fascinating grassroots interviews show how these often uncontrolled and uncontrollable 'rights episodes' both empower and exploit sexually marginalized, vulnerable people. A must read for anyone interested in twenty-first century rights formation and the future of the LGBTQ movement." -- Susan Burgess * Ohio University *"Erin Mayo-Adam's compelling book paints an intimate portrait of how coalitions form and break down at the grassroots level. An essential read for those who study and participate in movements, Queer Alliances illustrates what makes social movements tick from a fresh perspective and explains how rights can both liberate people and reinstate hierarchies." -- Julie Novkov * University at Albany, SUNY *

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Book SynopsisWhat is civil disobedience? Although Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King helped to bring the idea to prominence, even today it remains unclear how we should best understand civil disobedience. Why have so many different activists and intellectuals embraced it, and to what ends? Is civil disobedience still politically relevant in today's hyper-connected world? Does it make sense, for example, to describe Edward Snowden's actions, or those of recent global movements like Occupy, as falling under this rubric? If so, how must it adapt to respond to the challenges of digitalization and globalization and the rise of populist authoritarianism in the West?In this elegantly written introductory text, William E. Scheuerman systematically analyzes the most important interpretations of civil disobedience. Drawing out the striking differences separating religious, liberal, radical democratic, and anarchist views, he nonetheless shows that core commonalities remain. Against those who water down the idea of civil disobedience or view it as obsolescent, Scheuerman successfully salvages its central elements. The concept of civil disobedience, he argues, remains a pivotal tool for anyone hoping to bring about political and social change.Trade Review"This is a timely, useful, and insightful book, which offers both an introduction to, but also a spirited defense of, civil disobedience and its central place in our political world. From Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to Black Lives Matter, the book lays out the arguments for and against various conceptions of civil disobedience in clear and elegant prose." Simone Chambers, University of California, Irvine "This timely and wide-ranging introduction is at once historically instructive, analytically clear and politically engaged. It will be of great use to large numbers of students and specialists in politics, law, and philosophy." Robin Celikates, University of Amsterdam “Civil Disobedience… is lucid and concise; it is readily accessible to readers who know little about the theory of civil disobedience, while illuminating and insightful for readers who know quite a lot.”Political Theory “William E. Scheuerman’s critical analysis of civil disobedience… arrives at an auspicious moment. It offers an excellent, systematic survey of the philosophical literature on civil disobedience, as well as a nuanced appraisal of the profound impact of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr on its theory and practice.”Contemporary Political Theory Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Divine Witness Chapter Two: Liberalism and Its Limits Chapter Three: Deepening Democracy Chapter Four: Anarchist Uprising Chapter Five: Postnationalization and Privatization Chapter Six: Digitalization Chapter Seven: Tilting at Windmills? Conclusion Endnotes References Index

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Book SynopsisWhat is civil disobedience? Although Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King helped to bring the idea to prominence, even today it remains unclear how we should best understand civil disobedience. Why have so many different activists and intellectuals embraced it, and to what ends? Is civil disobedience still politically relevant in today's hyper-connected world? Does it make sense, for example, to describe Edward Snowden's actions, or those of recent global movements like Occupy, as falling under this rubric? If so, how must it adapt to respond to the challenges of digitalization and globalization and the rise of populist authoritarianism in the West?In this elegantly written introductory text, William E. Scheuerman systematically analyzes the most important interpretations of civil disobedience. Drawing out the striking differences separating religious, liberal, radical democratic, and anarchist views, he nonetheless shows that core commonalities remain. Against those who water down the idea of civil disobedience or view it as obsolescent, Scheuerman successfully salvages its central elements. The concept of civil disobedience, he argues, remains a pivotal tool for anyone hoping to bring about political and social change.Trade Review"This is a timely, useful, and insightful book, which offers both an introduction to, but also a spirited defense of, civil disobedience and its central place in our political world. From Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to Black Lives Matter, the book lays out the arguments for and against various conceptions of civil disobedience in clear and elegant prose." Simone Chambers, University of California, Irvine "This timely and wide-ranging introduction is at once historically instructive, analytically clear and politically engaged. It will be of great use to large numbers of students and specialists in politics, law, and philosophy." Robin Celikates, University of Amsterdam “Civil Disobedience… is lucid and concise; it is readily accessible to readers who know little about the theory of civil disobedience, while illuminating and insightful for readers who know quite a lot.”Political Theory “William E. Scheuerman’s critical analysis of civil disobedience… arrives at an auspicious moment. It offers an excellent, systematic survey of the philosophical literature on civil disobedience, as well as a nuanced appraisal of the profound impact of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr on its theory and practice.”Contemporary Political Theory Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Divine Witness Chapter Two: Liberalism and Its Limits Chapter Three: Deepening Democracy Chapter Four: Anarchist Uprising Chapter Five: Postnationalization and Privatization Chapter Six: Digitalization Chapter Seven: Tilting at Windmills? Conclusion Endnotes References Index

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Book SynopsisMapping the transformation of media activism from the seventies to the present dayHacked Transmissions is a pioneering exploration of how social movements change across cycles of struggle and alongside technology. Weaving a rich fabric of local and international social movements and media practices, politicized hacking, and independent cultural production, it takes as its entry point a multiyear ethnography of Telestreet, a network of pirate television channels in Italy that combined emerging technologies with the medium of television to challenge the media monopoly of tycoon-turned-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Street televisions in Italy represented a unique experiment in combining old and new media to forge grassroots alliances, fight social isolation, and build more resilient communities. Alessandra Renzi digs for the roots of Telestreet in movements of the 1970s and the global activism of the 1990s to trace its transformations in the present work of one of the network’s more active nodes, insu^tv, in Naples. In so doing, she offers a comprehensive account of transnational media activism, with particular attention to the relations among groups and projects, their modes of social reproduction, the contexts giving rise to them, and the technology they adopt—from zines and radios to social media. Hacked Transmissions is also a study in method, providing examples of co-research between activist researchers and social movements, and a theoretical framework that captures the complexities of grassroots politics and the agency of technology. Providing a rare and timely glimpse into a key activist/media project of the twenty-first century, Hacked Transmissions marks a vital contribution to debates in a range of fields, including media and communication studies, anthropology, science and technology studies, social movements studies, sociology, and cultural theory.Trade Review"Arising out of the author’s own political engagement in Telestreet, a network of pirate TV channels aiming to challenge Berlusconi’s control over the Italian media, this book’s analysis of social movements in terms of how they change the composition of the neoliberal geopolitical landscape is an intriguing and enabling proposition. It boldly reclaims the studies of political activism, and of leftist political activity in particular, from narratives and feelings of loss, failure, and melancholia."—Joanna Zylinska, Goldsmiths, University of London"With this deep dive into the creative collective spirit of early twenty-first-century media activists, Alessandra Renzi gives us the neglected histories of the activist internet while situating current corporate social media in a genealogy of radical grassroots DIY innovations. Hacked Transmissions is an instant classic for social movement media studies."—Jack Z. Bratich, author of Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture"Alessandra Renzi's exquisite account draws on a decade of research and collaboration with Italian media activists and hackers to shake up and put to rest all too simplistic theories around social movements and media. Hacked Transmissions is an intellectual tour de force, sure to hit the reader with delightful waves of methodological, theoretical, and political insights, all relevant across time, place, and case."—Gabriella Coleman, author of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous "Simultaneously an insightful historic overview of post-1968 Italian media, a comprehensive framework for understanding contemporary mediascapes, and a good starting point for an informed and responsible approach to building the post-Covid19 world."—Modern Times Review "In Hacked Transmissions: Technology and Connective Activism in Italy, Alessandra Renzi’s lively ethnography transports the reader to Telestreet, which emerged in 2002 tocounter the political control over media content and production by Italian media tycoon turned Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s intermittent terms in office."—Mobilization "Hacked Transmissions is a refreshing read."—Technology and Culture Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Co-researching Telestreet as a Form of Connective Activism1. Making Sense of Telestreet: Three Compositions2. Intimacy and Media Making: A Long History of Delirium, Care, and Social Reproduction 3. Delirium at Work in Berlusconi’s Mediascape4. Activist Energetics in the Information Milieu5. Squatted Airwaves, Hacked Transmission6. Subjectivity, Therapy, Compositionality in the Porous Spaces of Naples7. Insu^tv, Media Connective8. De/Re/Compositions, in ProcessEpilogue: Repurposing Is How Connective Activism HappensAcknowledgmentsAppendix: List of InterviewsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisMapping the transformation of media activism from the seventies to the present dayHacked Transmissions is a pioneering exploration of how social movements change across cycles of struggle and alongside technology. Weaving a rich fabric of local and international social movements and media practices, politicized hacking, and independent cultural production, it takes as its entry point a multiyear ethnography of Telestreet, a network of pirate television channels in Italy that combined emerging technologies with the medium of television to challenge the media monopoly of tycoon-turned-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Street televisions in Italy represented a unique experiment in combining old and new media to forge grassroots alliances, fight social isolation, and build more resilient communities. Alessandra Renzi digs for the roots of Telestreet in movements of the 1970s and the global activism of the 1990s to trace its transformations in the present work of one of the network’s more active nodes, insu^tv, in Naples. In so doing, she offers a comprehensive account of transnational media activism, with particular attention to the relations among groups and projects, their modes of social reproduction, the contexts giving rise to them, and the technology they adopt—from zines and radios to social media. Hacked Transmissions is also a study in method, providing examples of co-research between activist researchers and social movements, and a theoretical framework that captures the complexities of grassroots politics and the agency of technology. Providing a rare and timely glimpse into a key activist/media project of the twenty-first century, Hacked Transmissions marks a vital contribution to debates in a range of fields, including media and communication studies, anthropology, science and technology studies, social movements studies, sociology, and cultural theory.Trade Review"Arising out of the author’s own political engagement in Telestreet, a network of pirate TV channels aiming to challenge Berlusconi’s control over the Italian media, this book’s analysis of social movements in terms of how they change the composition of the neoliberal geopolitical landscape is an intriguing and enabling proposition. It boldly reclaims the studies of political activism, and of leftist political activity in particular, from narratives and feelings of loss, failure, and melancholia."—Joanna Zylinska, Goldsmiths, University of London"With this deep dive into the creative collective spirit of early twenty-first-century media activists, Alessandra Renzi gives us the neglected histories of the activist internet while situating current corporate social media in a genealogy of radical grassroots DIY innovations. Hacked Transmissions is an instant classic for social movement media studies."—Jack Z. Bratich, author of Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture"Alessandra Renzi's exquisite account draws on a decade of research and collaboration with Italian media activists and hackers to shake up and put to rest all too simplistic theories around social movements and media. Hacked Transmissions is an intellectual tour de force, sure to hit the reader with delightful waves of methodological, theoretical, and political insights, all relevant across time, place, and case."—Gabriella Coleman, author of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous "Simultaneously an insightful historic overview of post-1968 Italian media, a comprehensive framework for understanding contemporary mediascapes, and a good starting point for an informed and responsible approach to building the post-Covid19 world."—Modern Times Review "In Hacked Transmissions: Technology and Connective Activism in Italy, Alessandra Renzi’s lively ethnography transports the reader to Telestreet, which emerged in 2002 tocounter the political control over media content and production by Italian media tycoon turned Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s intermittent terms in office."—Mobilization "Hacked Transmissions is a refreshing read."—Technology and Culture Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Co-researching Telestreet as a Form of Connective Activism1. Making Sense of Telestreet: Three Compositions2. Intimacy and Media Making: A Long History of Delirium, Care, and Social Reproduction 3. Delirium at Work in Berlusconi’s Mediascape4. Activist Energetics in the Information Milieu5. Squatted Airwaves, Hacked Transmission6. Subjectivity, Therapy, Compositionality in the Porous Spaces of Naples7. Insu^tv, Media Connective8. De/Re/Compositions, in ProcessEpilogue: Repurposing Is How Connective Activism HappensAcknowledgmentsAppendix: List of InterviewsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisHow a Black woman from Texas became one of the most well-known civil rights activists in Minnesota, detailing seven remarkable decades of fighting for fairness in voting, housing, education, and employment Why do you continue to work on issues of justice? young Black people ask Josie Johnson today, then, perhaps in the same breath, How do you maintain hope? This book, a lifetime in the making, is Josie’s answer. A memoir about shouldering the cause of social justice during the darkest hours and brightest moments for civil rights in America—and, specifically, in Minnesota—Hope in the Struggle shines light on the difference one person can make. For Josie Johnson, this has meant making a difference as a Black woman in one of the nation’s whitest states.Josie’s story begins in a tight-knit community in Texas, where the unfairness of the segregated South, so antithetical to the values she learned at home, sharpened a sense of justice that guides her to this day. From the age of fourteen, when she went door to door with her father in Houston to campaign against the Poll Tax, to the moment in 2008 when, as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention, she cast her vote for Barack Obama for president, she has been at the forefront of the politics of civil rights. Her memoir offers a close-up picture of what that struggle has entailed, whether working as a community organizer for the Minneapolis Urban League or lobbying for fair housing and employment laws, investigating civil rights abuses or co-chairing the Minnesota delegation to the March on Washington, becoming the first African American to serve on the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents or creating the university’s Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs with a focus on minority affairs and diversity. An intimate view of civil rights history in the making, Hope in the Struggle is a uniquely inspiring life story for these current dark and divisive times, a testament to how one determined soul can make the world a better place.Trade Review"Josie R. Johnson has always been a champion of fairness and decency, and this book shows us that while there is still work to be done, with her help, there will always be hope."—Walter Mondale"Like other institutions, like our society, like human life itself, universities are based on hope—on the belief that a struggle is worth it and that it can, and will, be won. Once in a while, someone comes along to help a university define hope in the midst of struggle. Dr. Josie Johnson, my admired colleague Josie, helped teach a generation of us at the University of Minnesota that the struggle for human and civil rights is worth it and that it can—and will—be won. Yes, she always taught us that there is ‘hope in the struggle’!"—Nils Hasselmo, former president, University of Minnesota"Dr. Josie Johnson’s memoir poignantly captures nearly sixty years of the struggle for Civil Rights between 1950 and the election of President Barak Obama in 2008. Written from the perspective of a community activist, parent, scholar, and university administrator, Johnson has articulated well the issues confronting the movement for social justice in the United States. The breadth of her political contacts and the impact of her life’s work are breathtaking. This is a must read for those interested in American social history."—David Vassar Taylor, former dean, General College of the University of Minnesota"This is a must read for civil rights historians, public policy practitioners, women advocates, and anyone looking to be inspired. It chronicles Josie Johnson’s lifelong commitment to the struggle of the Black community to triumph over racism and discrimination. She gives us a more intimate understanding of the motivation behind her courageous work in Mississippi, at the Urban League in north Minneapolis, and at the University of Minnesota. Hope in the Struggle reminds us of the power of faith, the promise of hope, and the resilience that stems from love. Thank you, ‘Mama Josie,’ for sharing your love of family and community with all of us."—Sharon Sayles Belton, former mayor of Minneapolis "Johnson tells the city’s history, from the early 1950s until now, by placing its tiny but vibrant black community at the center. This is a memoir of Minneapolis. That it is told by an African-American woman makes it rare and necessary. That she is not afraid to identify and call out the ways in which white supremacy excluded black people from their full rights as Minnesotans—from exclusionary housing covenants to employment discrimination—is important. It’s a book that might help newcomers understand the city’s racial history and one that long-timers might find revelatory."—Star Tribune "Johnson’s memoir covers a lot of difficult territory, but one thing rings clear throughout: She has met these myriad challenges and difficulties with intelligence, energy, and hope."—Minnesota Alumni "Josie Johnson. The term ‘living legend’ might well understate her stature in the community. She is a beloved lady with a warmhearted smile and serious political clout who has made history."—Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder "This inspiring memoir describes how one person, a black woman from Texas, has made a difference in one of the whitest states in the country."—Minnesota History "A captivating book that explores the history of racial inequality in the United States."—The Corresponder

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Book SynopsisDispatches of radical political engagement from people taking a stand against the Dakota Access PipelineIt is prophecy. A Black Snake will spread itself across the land, bringing destruction while uniting Indigenous nations. The Dakota Access Pipeline is the Black Snake, crossing the Missouri River north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The oil pipeline united communities along its path—from North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois—and galvanized a twenty-first-century Indigenous resistance movement marching under the banner Mni Wiconi—Water Is Life! Standing Rock youth issued a call, and millions around the world and thousands of Water Protectors from more than three hundred Native nations answered. Amid the movement to protect the land and the water that millions depend on for life, the Oceti Sakowin (the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people) reunited. A nation was reborn with renewed power to protect the environment and support Indigenous grassroots education and organizing. This book assembles the multitude of voices of writers, thinkers, artists, and activists from that movement.Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors, including leaders of the Standing Rock movement, reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movement’s significance. Their work challenges our understanding of colonial history not simply as “lessons learned” but as essential guideposts for current and future activism.Contributors: Dave Archambault II, Natalie Avalos, Vanessa Bowen, Alleen Brown, Kevin Bruyneel, Tomoki Mari Birkett, Troy Cochrane, Michelle L. Cook, Deborah Cowen, Andrew Curley, Martin Danyluk, Jaskiran Dhillon, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Liz Ellis, Nick Estes, Marcella Gilbert, Sandy Grande, Craig Howe, Elise Hunchuck, Michelle Latimer, Layli Long Soldier, David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile, Jason Mancini, Sarah Sunshine Manning, Katie Mazer, Teresa Montoya, Chris Newell, The NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective, Jeffrey Ostler, Will Parrish, Shiri Pasternak, endawnis Spears, Alice Speri, Anne Spice, Kim TallBear, Mark L. Tilsen, Edward Valandra, Joel Waters, Tyler Young.Trade Review"As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline."—David Archambault II, from the interior"There is no alternative to water. There is no alternative to this Earth. This fight has become my life, and it’s not over. I think this is only the beginning for me, for all of us. Do you want a future for your children and grandchildren? If you want them to have a future then stand with Standing Rock because this is just the beginning of a revolution."—Zaysha Grinnell, from the interior"We will put our best warriors in the front. We are the vanguard. We are the Hunkpapa Lakota. That means the horn of the buffalo. That’s who we are. We are protectors of our nation of Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires. Know who we are."—Phyllis Young "While the editors have written their own books on the subject and are active participants in modern indigenous movements, this contextual anthology gives recognition and voice to the many who participated in the #NoDAPL protests. Highly recommended for casting light on a landmark cultural movement."—Library Journal"The pages of references are a sort of road map, not just of a roadmap through the book, but a road map through time, and specifically through the time when Standing Rock camps were alive, pulsing with life, and giving birth to revolution and movement."—Censored News"An essential volume to understand the history and significance of the famous resistance action, combining everything from essays and interviews to poems and photography."—The Revelator"As a rejection of this dominant historiography, the volume demonstrates that the #NoDAPL is a legacy of ongoing Indigenous resistance and not a failure."—H-Net Reviews"Standing with Standing Rock represents a remarkable collection of original and previously published essays, interviews, poems,and personal reflections by those who were on the ground at the Dakota Access Pipeline standoff and others who acted in its support."—American Literary History "A concise and readable volume on the #NODAPL Movement and its connection to global Indigenous decolonization activism."—American Indian Quarterly"Standing with Standing Rock presents multiple vantage points and a plurality of perspectives to voice a common theme and a hopeful message."—Alternative Law "Standing with Standing Rock delivers on all that an edited collection promises, appealingly varied in its contributions while remaining cohesive and compelling in its core focus on Indigenous sovereignty."—ISLE"The book brings to life the voices of those who stood up at Standing Rock and enables the reader to experience the beauty, brutality and vision of a different future."—Against the Current

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Book SynopsisA second edition of the classic introduction to arts in social movements, fully updated and now including Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and new digital and social media forms of cultural resistanceThe Art of Protest, first published in 2006, was hailed as an “essential” introduction to progressive social movements in the United States and praised for its “fluid writing style” and “well-informed and insightful” contribution (Choice Magazine). Now thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition of T. V. Reed’s acclaimed work offers engaging accounts of ten key progressive movements in postwar America, from the African American struggle for civil rights beginning in the 1950s to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century. Reed focuses on the artistic activities of these movements as a lively way to frame progressive social change and its cultural legacies: civil rights freedom songs, the street drama of the Black Panthers, revolutionary murals of the Chicano movement, poetry in women’s movements, the American Indian Movement’s use of film and video, anti-apartheid rock music, ACT UP’s visual art, digital arts in #Occupy, Black Lives Matter rap videos, and more. Through the kaleidoscopic lens of artistic expression, Reed reveals how activism profoundly shapes popular cultural forms. For students and scholars of social change and those seeking to counter reactionary efforts to turn back the clock on social equality and justice, the new edition of The Art of Protest will be both informative and inspiring.Trade Review"This impressive study demonstrates that culture matters to social movements and that social movements affect cultural and aesthetic practices. From the transmission of southern spirituals into freedom songs during the civil rights era to political theater in antiracist struggles, from poetry as a site of feminist consciousness-raising to mural painting within the Chicano movement, from rock music and the 1980s anti-apartheid student movement to performance art in ACT UP, T. V. Reed vividly demonstrates that cultural work has been a vital medium for imagining and acting for social change."—Lisa Lowe, author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics"The Art of Protest is a great introduction to the history of social movements, but it is also an important book about art and culture, about the infinitely lively, complex, and contradictory roles assigned to performances and cultural expressions by social movements."—George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger"As a veteran teacher and practitioner of artistic activism, there are a few resources I have found to be invaluable: T. V. Reed's The Art of Protest is one of them. Knowledgeable, lucid, comprehensive, and creative, it is simply the best book out there for understanding how activists in the United States have used cultural strategies and artistic tactics to effectively—and affectively—challenge existing power and envision radical alternatives. I have taught the first edition of this book every year since it was first published, and the release of this new edition means I'll be teaching it for years to come."—Stephen Duncombe, co-director, Center for Artistic Activism"T. V. Reed’s fully renovated version of this landmark study is even more relevant than the original publication. In the past fifteen years, the energy and creativity of artists and cultural workers has become increasingly central to the political work of movements. An indispensable overview!"—Andrew Ross, New York UniversityTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. Singing Civil Rights: The Freedom Song Tradition2. Dramatic Resistance: Theatrical Politics from the Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter3. The Poetical Is the Political: Feminist Poetry and the Poetics of Women’s Rights4. Revolutionary Walls: Chicano/a Murals, Chicano/a Movements5. Old Cowboys, New Indians: Hollywood Frames the American Indian Movement6. “We Are [Not] the World”: Famine, Apartheid, and the Politics of Rock Music7. ACTing UP against AIDS: The (Very) Graphic Arts in a Moment of Crisis8. Novels of Environmental Justice: Toxic Colonialism and the Nature of Culture9. Puppetry against Puppet Regimes: The “Battle of Seattle” and the Global Justice Movement10. #Occupy All the Arts: Challenging Wall Street and Economic Inequality WorldwideConclusion: The Cultural Study of Social MovementsAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThe compassionate and redemptive story of a prominent Black woman in the Twin Cities literary community Carolyn Holbrook’s life is peopled with ghosts—of the girl she was, the selves she shed and those who have caught up to her, the wounded and kind and malevolent spirits she’s encountered, and also the beloved souls she’s lost and those she never knew who beg to have their stories told. “Now don’t you go stirring things up,” one ghostly aunt counsels. Another smiles encouragingly: “Don’t hold back, child. Someone out there needs to hear what you have to say.” Once a pregnant sixteen-year-old incarcerated in the Minnesota juvenile justice system, now a celebrated writer, arts activist, and teacher who helps others unlock their creative power, Holbrook has heeded the call to tell the story of her life, and to find among its chapters—the horrific and the holy, the wild and the charmed—the lessons and necessary truths of those who have come before. In a memoir woven of moments of reckoning, she summons stories born of silence, stories held inside, untold stories stifled by pain or prejudice or ignorance. A child’s trauma recalls her own. An abusive marriage returns to haunt her family. She builds a career while raising five children as a single mother; she struggles with depression and grapples with crises immediate and historical, all while countenancing the subtle racism lurking under “Minnesota nice.” Here Holbrook poignantly traces the path from her troubled childhood to her leadership positions in the Twin Cities literary community, showing how creative writing can be a powerful tool for challenging racism and the healing ways of the storyteller’s art. Trade Review"Carolyn Holbrook’s remarkable book testifies to the power of the arts to heal her own life traumas, both historical and more recent. We see and hear her learn to speak up, and to claim space, in a world designed to keep silent or remove people like her."—Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies"Carolyn Holbrook is steadfast in her work to break free of constrictions that harm one’s spirit, knowing them to be racially, economically, and culturally imposed. Honest and perceptive stories of her experiences illuminate how her basic acts to create, over and over again, make for a life whose purpose and meaning resonate with her readers."—Cindy Gehrig, retired president, Jerome Foundation"Carolyn Holbrook's evocative essays show how experience shapes—across generations and within a single lifespan—both writing and the writer. There are important stories here, stories of single parenting, stories of struggle and connection, stories of colorism and of age. There are stories of Black south Minneapolis and the land where Prince emerged, stories of generations that hurt and heal together, and stories of how stories are shaped by all of these things. This is a book about writing, and it is a book about a writer's life that is chaptered by its connection to other lives. Read it."—Susan Raffo, writer, cultural worker, and community organizer"Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify is a powerful portrait of a life fueled by hope and faith in art and the artfulness of self, others, and community. Carolyn Holbrook’s social observations and personal remembrances cut across lines of race, class, and generational divides, deep into the heart of who we all are to one another at our most fundamental level of creative being. You will shiver, laugh, cry, cheer, stomp, want to sing, and, perhaps most indelibly of all, by the grace of this bold book and its author’s beautiful invocation, you too will feel inspired and empowered to write what lives deepest within you back into its vibrant fullness."—Ed Bok Lee, author of Mitochondrial Night"Carolyn Holbrook’s stories are a necessary telling of the history of our city and the roots of its literary community, creating new entrances where there previously were the usual monsters of exclusion and marginalization. These stories blend sincere accounts of her own personal survival, clutching tightly to family and history at every blow, with the contributions of all of these experiences to make a single fascinating lifetime. She teaches us how art and the human survive what was meant to suppress them and that our greatest creations as artists may be found in the ways we care for each other. I am astounded by her generosity of spirit in this book and in her work with those of us fortunate enough to cross her path."—Zeke Caligiuri, author of This Is Where I Am"The organization of the essays is also quite brilliant. It feels like a conversation—albeit one with the most eloquent person I’ve ever talked to."—The Bookish Feminist"This ultimately uplifting collection is candid, vibrant and powerful."—Ms. Magazine"The memoir of Twin Cities writer Carolyn Holbrook is one of fortitude and resilience. . . . During a time when this country seems to be in the midst of a historic reckoning, Holbrook’s story should be read as more than a memoir. She sets out to personalize and underscore the resilience that goes into surviving and thriving without resources."—Star Tribune"Carolyn Holbrook has accomplished wonderful and amazing things—not the least of which is raising five children on her own and earning a doctorate. She encountered obstacles, prejudice, and sexism, and overcame them all, and her story is empowering, uplifting, and inspiring."—Tomorrow Is Another Day"Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify is powerful, touching, and igniting in its messages, its structure, and its reflections."—The Bookish FeministTable of ContentsContentsPrologue: Liza1. My Roots2. Coming Clean3. Tania’s Birthday4. The “Award”5. Finally Independent6. Reflections on Teaching7. Expectations and Assumptions8. How Long Does it Take?9. I Want to Know My Name10. The Bank Robbery11. Neighborhood Watch12. My Daughter, Myself13. Sex and the Single Grandma14. Say What?15. Earth Angels16. Stones and SticksAcknowledgmentsPublication History

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Book SynopsisExamining the work of social justice groups in Minneapolis following the 2008 recession Since the Great Recession, even as protest and rebellion have occurred with growing frequency, many social justice organizers continue to displace as much as empower popular struggles for egalitarian and emancipatory change. In A Voice but No Power, David Forrest explains why this is the case and explores how these organizers might better reach their potential as advocates for the abolition of exploitation, discrimination, and other unjust conditions.Through an in-depth study of post-2008 Minneapolis—a center of progressive activism—Forrest argues that social justice organizers so often fall short of their potential largely because of challenges they face in building what he calls “contentious identities,” the public identities they use to represent their constituents and counteract stigmatizing images such as the “welfare queen” or “the underclass.” In the process of assembling, publicizing, and legitimating contentious identities, he shows, these organizers encounter a series of political hazards, each of which pushes them to make choices that weaken movements for equality and freedom. Forrest demonstrates that organizers can achieve better outcomes, however, by steadily working to remake their hazardous political terrain.The book’s conclusion reflects on the 2020 uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd, assessing what it means for the future of social justice activism. Ultimately, Forrest’s detailed analysis contributes to leading theories about organizing and social movements and charts possibilities for further emboldening grassroots struggles for a fairer society.Trade Review "In a much-needed update to Piven and Cloward's classic Poor People's Movements, David Forrest has given us a stirring and challenging analysis of the slippery politics social justice organizations must pursue in order to achieve real change. Grounded in three rich case studies on education, housing, and welfare rights that played out in the cauldron of Minneapolis's racial politics in the years before the police killing of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests, A Voice but No Power is a major contribution to the scholarly literature and an inspiration to all who seek social justice."—Sanford Schram, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center "In the face of the weakening hold of the neoliberal capitalist order, as competing egalitarian and deeply regressive forces vie for power, this is exactly the kind of book we need. David Forrest’s theoretically informed, deeply researched activist scholarship on three post-Great Recession urban social movements in Minneapolis provides a solid foundation for his chief, crucially important lesson for progressive social movements: we only make advances by fighting uncompromisingly for the world we want and need."—John Arena, author of Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization "Forrest’s fresh take on social justice organizing is a must-read volume for academics of social movements and organizers alike."—CHOICE "A Voice but No Power is an important contribution to movement theory and institutional analysis of social justice organizations. Forrest offers poignant insights on how market supremacy permeates movements and why organizational identities, and the ways activists leverage them, are essential for building a more equitable and free society."—Mobilization

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Book SynopsisExamining the work of social justice groups in Minneapolis following the 2008 recession Since the Great Recession, even as protest and rebellion have occurred with growing frequency, many social justice organizers continue to displace as much as empower popular struggles for egalitarian and emancipatory change. In A Voice but No Power, David Forrest explains why this is the case and explores how these organizers might better reach their potential as advocates for the abolition of exploitation, discrimination, and other unjust conditions.Through an in-depth study of post-2008 Minneapolis—a center of progressive activism—Forrest argues that social justice organizers so often fall short of their potential largely because of challenges they face in building what he calls “contentious identities,” the public identities they use to represent their constituents and counteract stigmatizing images such as the “welfare queen” or “the underclass.” In the process of assembling, publicizing, and legitimating contentious identities, he shows, these organizers encounter a series of political hazards, each of which pushes them to make choices that weaken movements for equality and freedom. Forrest demonstrates that organizers can achieve better outcomes, however, by steadily working to remake their hazardous political terrain.The book’s conclusion reflects on the 2020 uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd, assessing what it means for the future of social justice activism. Ultimately, Forrest’s detailed analysis contributes to leading theories about organizing and social movements and charts possibilities for further emboldening grassroots struggles for a fairer society.Trade Review "In a much-needed update to Piven and Cloward's classic Poor People's Movements, David Forrest has given us a stirring and challenging analysis of the slippery politics social justice organizations must pursue in order to achieve real change. Grounded in three rich case studies on education, housing, and welfare rights that played out in the cauldron of Minneapolis's racial politics in the years before the police killing of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests, A Voice but No Power is a major contribution to the scholarly literature and an inspiration to all who seek social justice."—Sanford Schram, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center "In the face of the weakening hold of the neoliberal capitalist order, as competing egalitarian and deeply regressive forces vie for power, this is exactly the kind of book we need. David Forrest’s theoretically informed, deeply researched activist scholarship on three post-Great Recession urban social movements in Minneapolis provides a solid foundation for his chief, crucially important lesson for progressive social movements: we only make advances by fighting uncompromisingly for the world we want and need."—John Arena, author of Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization "Forrest’s fresh take on social justice organizing is a must-read volume for academics of social movements and organizers alike."—CHOICE "A Voice but No Power is an important contribution to movement theory and institutional analysis of social justice organizations. Forrest offers poignant insights on how market supremacy permeates movements and why organizational identities, and the ways activists leverage them, are essential for building a more equitable and free society."—Mobilization

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Book SynopsisWith austerity’s disproportionately heavy impact on women now apparent, this engaging book considers activism against it from a feminist perspective. Emma Craddock goes deep inside activist culture to explore the many cultural and emotional dimensions of political participation. She questions what motivates and sustains protest, considering the enabling aspects of solidarity and empathy, as well as the constraining factors of negative emotions and gendered barriers associated with activism, examining the role of gender and emotion within protest. This is a lived-in study that gets to the heart of what it means to be an anti-austerity activist and an important addition to social justice debate.Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Establishing Context A Critical Review of Social Movement Theory: Gender and Emotion in Activist Cultures The Empirical and Political Context of Anti-Austerity Activism Part II: Doing Activism: Enabling and Constraining Factors The Affective, the Normative and the Everyday: Exploring What Motivates and Sustains Anti-Austerity Activism Barriers to Doing Activism PART III: Being Activist: The Activist Identity and Its Problems The Authentic and Ideal Activist Identities: Having the ‘Right’ Motivation and Doing ‘Enough’ of the ‘Right’ Type of Activism The Dark Side of Activist Culture and its Gendered Dimension Part IV: Concluding Remarks Subverting/Reinforcing Neoliberal Capitalism: The Complex Ambivalence of Anti-Austerity Activism References Appendix

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Book SynopsisHow does gendered power work? How does it circulate? How does it become embedded? And most importantly, how can we challenge it? Heather Savigny highlights five key traits of cultural sexism – violence, silencing, disciplining, meritocracy and masculinity – prevalent across the media, entertainment and cultural industries that keep sexist values firmly within popular consciousness. She traces the development of key feminist thinkers before demonstrating how the normalization of misogyny in popular media, culture, news and politics perpetuates patriarchal values within our everyday social and cultural landscape. She argues that we need to understand why #MeToo was necessary in the first place in order to bring about impactful, lasting and meaningful change.Table of ContentsIntroduction: From Waves to Tsunamis Repoliticizing Sexism Media Merit Silence Discipline Violence Conclusion: The Politics of Feminist Rage Appendix: Practical Steps to Overcoming Cultural Sexism

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Book SynopsisThis is a nuanced and compelling analysis of grassroots feminist activism in Russia in the politically turbulent 2010s. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, the author illustrates how a new generation of activists chose feminism as their main political beacon, and how they negotiated the challenges of authoritarian and conservative trends. As we witness a backlash against feminism on a global scale with the rise of neoconservative governments, this highly relevant book decentres Western theory and concepts of feminism and social movements, offering significant insights into how resistance can mobilize and invent creative tactics to cope with an increasingly repressed space for independent political action.Table of ContentsIntroduction Fifteen Cases of Disability Hate Crime From Hate Crime to Disability Hate Crime Agenda Triggering Agenda Development Towards Agenda Institutionalization? The Problem with the Current Agenda: Focus on Vulnerability An Agenda Item Yet to Fully Speak Its Name: Ableism and Disability Hate Crime Conclusion

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Book SynopsisIn a time of great gloom and doom internationally and of major global problems, this book offers an invaluable contribution to our understanding of alternative societies that could be better for humans and the environment. Bringing together a wide range of approaches and new strands of economic and social thinking from across the US, Mexico, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa, Luke Martell critically assesses contemporary alternatives and shows the ways forward with a convincing argument of pluralist socialism. Presenting a much-needed introduction to the debate on alternatives to capitalism, this ambitious book is not about how things are but how they can be!Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Alternative Economies 2. Social Alternatives 3. Utopianism and its Critics 4. Socialism and its Critics 5. The Democratic Economy 6. Alternative Globalization Conclusion

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Book SynopsisPolitical hackers, like the infamous Anonymous collective, have demonstrated their willingness to use political violence to further their agendas. However, many of their causes – targeting terrorist groups, fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, and protecting people’s freedom of expression, autonomy and privacy – are intuitively good things to fight for. This book will create a new framework that argues that when the state fails to protect people, hackers can intervene and evaluates the hacking based on the political or social circumstances. It highlights the space for hackers to operate as legitimate actors; guides hacker activity by detailing what actions are justified toward what end; outlines mechanisms to aid hackers in reaching ethically justified decisions; and directs the political community on how to react to these political hackers. Applying this framework to the most pivotal hacking operations within the last two decades, including the Arab Spring, police brutality in the USA and the Nigerian and Ugandan governments’ announcements of homophobic legislation, it offers a unique contribution to conceptualising hacking as a contemporary political activity.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Hacks, Hackers and Political Hacking 2. An Ethical Framework for Hacking Operations 3. Political Autonomy, the Arab Spring and Anonymous 4. Leaks: From Whistleblowing to Doxxing 5. Correcting the Failure of the State 6. Looking Back, Moving Forward Conclusion

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Book SynopsisDefying the current pessimistic narrative, this book challenges the prevailing assumptions that the political Left is spent, hopeful ideological discourse has collapsed and social media has corroded public debates about politics. Instead, the book argues that ideological activism remains vibrant on the Left, but there is currently no clear way of recognising and analysing this phenomenon. The book fills this gap by first defining what political social media is and then by taking a morphological approach to investigating political ideologies and revealing the ways in which interconnected concepts are arranged. It concludes by coining the term ‘proto-ideologies’ to approach the construction of concepts that generate ideologies in the making.Trade Review"A masterful analysis of left-wing discourse in the age of social media. This book provides an ultimately uplifting account of political social media, contrary to the widespread accusations that it is damaging public debate." Remi Adekoya, University of YorkTable of ContentsPart I 1. Introduction 2. Chaos, Crisis, Decline, Contention 3. ‘A Largeness of Vision and Imagination’: Marxism and Socialism 4. Proto-Ideologies Part II 5. Democratic Marxist Nationalism 6. Identitarian Socialism 7. Contention 8. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisProvides unique insight into Reconstruction’s downfall and Jim Crow’s emergence. In the years and decades following the American Civil War, veteran abolitionists actively thought and wrote about the campaign to end enslavement immediately. This study explores the late-in-life reflections of several antislavery memorial and historical writers, evaluating the stable and shifting meanings of antebellum abolitionism amidst dramatic changes in postbellum race relations. By investigating veteran abolitionists as movement chroniclers and commemorators and situating their texts within various contexts, Raymond James Krohn further assesses the humanitarian commitments of activists who had valued themselves as the enslaved people’s steadfast friends. Never solely against slavery, post-1830 abolitionism challenged widely held anti-Black prejudices as well. Dedicated to emancipating the enslaved and elevating people of color, it equipped adherents with the necessary linguistic resources to wage a valiant, sustained philanthropic fight. Abolitionist Twilights focuses on how the status and condition of the freedpeople and their descendants affected book-length representations of antislavery persons and events. In probing veteran– abolitionist engagement in or disengagement from an ongoing African American freedom struggle, this ambitious volume ultimately problematizes scholarly understandings of abolitionism’s racial justice history and legacy.Table of ContentsIntroduction: What Is Abolitionism Now? From the Disposition of the AASS to the Determinants of Abolitionist History | 1 1 Antislavery Moderated: Samuel Joseph May and the Lessons of Respectable Reform | 19 2 Antislavery Elevated: William Wells Brown and the Purpose of Black Activism | 45 3 Antislavery Vindicated: Oliver Johnson and the Value of Abolitionism’s Grand Old Party | 72 4 Antislavery Sanctified: Parker Pillsbury and the Spirit of Abolitionism in the Fields | 100 5 A Tale of Two Slaveries: Aaron Macy Powell and the Transfiguration of Abolitionism | 125 6 Songs of Innocence and Experience: Thomas Wentworth Higginson and the Abdication of Abolitionism | 154 7 What Was Antislavery For? From the Disbandment of the AASS to the Determination of Abolitionist Women | 191 Coda: Complicated Legacies | 219 Acknowledgments | 221 Notes | 225 Index | 269

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Book SynopsisProvides unique insight into Reconstruction’s downfall and Jim Crow’s emergence. In the years and decades following the American Civil War, veteran abolitionists actively thought and wrote about the campaign to end enslavement immediately. This study explores the late-in-life reflections of several antislavery memorial and historical writers, evaluating the stable and shifting meanings of antebellum abolitionism amidst dramatic changes in postbellum race relations. By investigating veteran abolitionists as movement chroniclers and commemorators and situating their texts within various contexts, Raymond James Krohn further assesses the humanitarian commitments of activists who had valued themselves as the enslaved people’s steadfast friends. Never solely against slavery, post-1830 abolitionism challenged widely held anti-Black prejudices as well. Dedicated to emancipating the enslaved and elevating people of color, it equipped adherents with the necessary linguistic resources to wage a valiant, sustained philanthropic fight. Abolitionist Twilights focuses on how the status and condition of the freedpeople and their descendants affected book-length representations of antislavery persons and events. In probing veteran– abolitionist engagement in or disengagement from an ongoing African American freedom struggle, this ambitious volume ultimately problematizes scholarly understandings of abolitionism’s racial justice history and legacy.Table of ContentsIntroduction: What Is Abolitionism Now? From the Disposition of the AASS to the Determinants of Abolitionist History | 1 1 Antislavery Moderated: Samuel Joseph May and the Lessons of Respectable Reform | 19 2 Antislavery Elevated: William Wells Brown and the Purpose of Black Activism | 45 3 Antislavery Vindicated: Oliver Johnson and the Value of Abolitionism’s Grand Old Party | 72 4 Antislavery Sanctified: Parker Pillsbury and the Spirit of Abolitionism in the Fields | 100 5 A Tale of Two Slaveries: Aaron Macy Powell and the Transfiguration of Abolitionism | 125 6 Songs of Innocence and Experience: Thomas Wentworth Higginson and the Abdication of Abolitionism | 154 7 What Was Antislavery For? From the Disbandment of the AASS to the Determination of Abolitionist Women | 191 Coda: Complicated Legacies | 219 Acknowledgments | 221 Notes | 225 Index | 269

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Book SynopsisA pioneering study of women's movements in two developing-world revolutions and post-revolutionary transitions to neo-liberal democraciesTrade Review"Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua provides a compelling account of women's contributions to revolutionary struggle and social transformation in two nations, illuminating the enormity of the challenge posed by gender equality, the effects of revolution on women's and men's lives, and the increasing precariousness of social justice struggles in a globalizing world."—Mary Hawkesworth, Professor and Chair, Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University, and Editor in Chief, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and SocietyTable of ContentsList of Maps and Tables Preface Acknowledgements List of Acronyms 1. "Women Must Occupy and Give Themselves the Place They Deserve" Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua 2. "After Acknowledging Differences, We Must Also See What We Have in Common" Feminist Contestations and Commonalities across First World/Third World, African, and Latin American Divides 3. "Doing a Revolution Doesn't Stop You from Being Machista" The Birth of Revolutionary Women's Organizations and the Limits of Marxism-Leninism in Mozambique and Nicaragua 4. "Women are Not Cows—We Are Active Agents of History" Autonomy Struggles Emerge in Mozambique and Nicaragua 5. "The Oppressed Woman Is Easier to Deal With" Political Participation, Legal Reforms, and Cultural Constraints in Mozambique and Nicaragua 6. "I Can Do Anything a Man Can Do" Military Participation, Economic Production, and Women's Emancipation in Mozambique and Nicaragua 7. "There Are No Alternatives: Is This Really Democracy?" Democratization and Civil Society in Mozambique and Nicaragua 8. "Partners in the Home, at Work, and on the Street" The Contemporary Women's Movements and Emergent Feminisms in Mozambique and Nicaragua Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA pioneering study of women's movements in two developing-world revolutions and post-revolutionary transitions to neo-liberal democraciesTrade Review"Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua provides a compelling account of women's contributions to revolutionary struggle and social transformation in two nations, illuminating the enormity of the challenge posed by gender equality, the effects of revolution on women's and men's lives, and the increasing precariousness of social justice struggles in a globalizing world."—Mary Hawkesworth, Professor and Chair, Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University, and Editor in Chief, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and SocietyTable of ContentsList of Maps and Tables Preface Acknowledgements List of Acronyms 1. "Women Must Occupy and Give Themselves the Place They Deserve" Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua 2. "After Acknowledging Differences, We Must Also See What We Have in Common" Feminist Contestations and Commonalities across First World/Third World, African, and Latin American Divides 3. "Doing a Revolution Doesn't Stop You from Being Machista" The Birth of Revolutionary Women's Organizations and the Limits of Marxism-Leninism in Mozambique and Nicaragua 4. "Women are Not Cows—We Are Active Agents of History" Autonomy Struggles Emerge in Mozambique and Nicaragua 5. "The Oppressed Woman Is Easier to Deal With" Political Participation, Legal Reforms, and Cultural Constraints in Mozambique and Nicaragua 6. "I Can Do Anything a Man Can Do" Military Participation, Economic Production, and Women's Emancipation in Mozambique and Nicaragua 7. "There Are No Alternatives: Is This Really Democracy?" Democratization and Civil Society in Mozambique and Nicaragua 8. "Partners in the Home, at Work, and on the Street" The Contemporary Women's Movements and Emergent Feminisms in Mozambique and Nicaragua Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDiscusses Asian Americans as a force for political change on both sides of the PacificTrade Review“The book conveys the sense that there is something dynamic, complex and compelling at work here when considering the transnational dimension of Asian American political lives. The reader is left with a sense as well that in looking at these questions for Asian Americans one is getting at least a glimpse at issues that will apply to a growing number of immigrant Americans from reaches other than Asia.”—Paul Watanabe, Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies, University of Massachusetts, BostonTable of ContentsList of Figures and Tables Foreword Acknowledgments 1. The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans: Controversies, Questions, ConvergencePART I: Asian States and Nationalisms in Asian American Politics: Then and Now 2. Dancing with the Rising Sun: Strategic Alliances between Japanese Immigrants and Their “Home” Government 3. Journeys of Discovery and Difference: Transnational Politics and the Union of Democratic Filipinos 4. Contested Nation: Vietnam and the Emergence of Saigon Nationalism in the United StatesPART II: The Practices and Sites of Asian American Transnational Politics 5. Transnational Dimensions of Community Empowerment: The Victories of Chanrithy Uong and Sam Yoon 6. Working Democracy: Transnational Repertoires of Citizenship among New Chinese Americans 7. The Limits of Transnational Mobilization: Indian American Lobby Groups and the India–U.S. Civil Nuclear Deal 8. Network Governance of Asian American Diasporic PoliticsPART III: Transnational Political Behavior and Asian American Identities 9. Like Latinos? Explaining the Transnational Political Behavior of Asian Americans 10. The Intersection of “Americanization” and “Racial Expansion”: Nisei Identity Politics in Prewar Hawai‘i 11. Does Transnational Living Preclude Pan-Ethnic Thinking? An Exploration of Asian American Identities Notes References About the Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisIn this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

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Book SynopsisA feminist organizer in East Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall reveals the struggles of women fighting for their rights during the rise of the Right in Europe Visitors tells the story of Ann Snitow’s adventures as a Western feminist helping to build a new, post-communist feminist movement in Eastern Central Europe. Snitow stumbles onto this fast-changing, chaotic scene by chance, but falls in love with the passionate feminists she meets in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. What kinds of feminism should they hope for? Visitors is a book about forging enduring relationships and creating formerly unimaginable institutions—a feminist school, the Network of East-West Women, women’s centers, gender studies programs. It is about unity amid fractiousness and perseverance through uncertainty, Snitow’s flickering lodestar. Visitors moves gracefully between vivid anecdote, political analysis, and unsparing introspection. It is richly peopled with “brilliant” comrades and vexing detractors alike, all described with respect and humor. Every sentence is imbued with the experience and insight of this sui generis feminist activist, writer, and pedagogue of 50 years. Most of all, Visitors is the story of friendship, the heart and sinew of the leaderless feminist movement. Reading like the best historical novel, it is intimate and worldly, resolutely unsentimental yet finally, even as the political skies darken, optimistic in the conviction that feminism can make life meaningful, fascinating, fun, pleasurable—and better for everyone, even as better is redefined again and again.Trade Review"This is an inspired piece of personal journalism that takes us to Eastern Europe where we follow the social and political adventures, over a period of twenty five years, of one of the great feminists of the Second Wave. As Ann Snitow discovers the historic antagonism to women’s rights that marks the region, she also experiences the remarkably courageous women who are spending their lives fighting it. Richly informed, emotionally centered, beautiful written, Visitors is a book to be read by all who crave a deeper understanding of the times in which we live." -- Vivian Gornick"Ann Snitow’s extraordinary gifts for friendship and organizing spill off the pages of this illuminating memoir, which lights up a formerly obscure but important aspect of our history. The lucky reader gets to follow Ann and her new friends as they create a broad, potent network of feminist activists practically from scratch in the ruins of Soviet communism." -- Alix Shulman

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Book SynopsisA feminist organizer in East Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall reveals the struggles of women fighting for their rights during the rise of the Right in Europe Visitors tells the story of Ann Snitow’s adventures as a Western feminist helping to build a new, post-communist feminist movement in Eastern Central Europe. Snitow stumbles onto this fast-changing, chaotic scene by chance, but falls in love with the passionate feminists she meets in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. What kinds of feminism should they hope for? Visitors is a book about forging enduring relationships and creating formerly unimaginable institutions—a feminist school, the Network of East-West Women, women’s centers, gender studies programs. It is about unity amid fractiousness and perseverance through uncertainty, Snitow’s flickering lodestar. Visitors moves gracefully between vivid anecdote, political analysis, and unsparing introspection. It is richly peopled with “brilliant” comrades and vexing detractors alike, all described with respect and humor. Every sentence is imbued with the experience and insight of this sui generis feminist activist, writer, and pedagogue of 50 years. Most of all, Visitors is the story of friendship, the heart and sinew of the leaderless feminist movement. Reading like the best historical novel, it is intimate and worldly, resolutely unsentimental yet finally, even as the political skies darken, optimistic in the conviction that feminism can make life meaningful, fascinating, fun, pleasurable—and better for everyone, even as better is redefined again and again.Trade Review"This is an inspired piece of personal journalism that takes us to Eastern Europe where we follow the social and political adventures, over a period of twenty five years, of one of the great feminists of the Second Wave. As Ann Snitow discovers the historic antagonism to women’s rights that marks the region, she also experiences the remarkably courageous women who are spending their lives fighting it. Richly informed, emotionally centered, beautiful written, Visitors is a book to be read by all who crave a deeper understanding of the times in which we live." -- Vivian Gornick"Ann Snitow’s extraordinary gifts for friendship and organizing spill off the pages of this illuminating memoir, which lights up a formerly obscure but important aspect of our history. The lucky reader gets to follow Ann and her new friends as they create a broad, potent network of feminist activists practically from scratch in the ruins of Soviet communism." -- Alix Shulman

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Book SynopsisA vivid portrait collection of past and present Americans speaking truth to power The first volume of Robert Shetterly's Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series, Portraits of Racial Justice takes a multimedia, interdisciplinary approach, blending art and history with today’s issues concerning social, environmental, and economic fairness. Shetterly's paintings, as well as profiles of those portrayed, illuminate a community of people not only willing to recognize the shortcomings of America’s history, but most importantly, individuals who offer their visions of a better world moving forward. Starting with Michelle Alexander and ending with Dave Zirin, the diverse array of fifty full-color portraits spans multiple generations and struggles. This volume also includes four original opening essays on racial justice in the United States by Ai-jen Poo, Dave Zirin, Sherri Mitchell, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., which provide an intersectional response to the long-term goal of diversity and inclusion. As Shetterly says, “without activism, hope is merely sentimental.” Portraits of Racial Justice, Shetterly’s homage to transformative game-changers and status-quo fighters, provides the inspiration necessary to spark social change.Trade Review"The work of Robert Shetterly is the work of a brilliant artist who cares about a living, breathing democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people—and not being saddled to a brittle history of the past. Inspired by vibrant paths of engagement, Shetterly’s Portraits of Racial Justice is a loving chronicle of charismatic change in the name of transformative and passionate leadership across disciplines, race, gender, and beliefs. This project is more than a series of spirited portraits, it is a masterpiece of revolutionary ideas." -- Terry Tempest Williams"I'm lucky enough to know some of these great heroes, and can testify that Robert Shetterly has captured not just their likeness but their essence. These portraits inspire and comfort, reminding us of how many fine people have built our history, and how possible it is for the rest of us to emulate them." -- Bill McKibben"Situated powerfully and beautifully at the intersection of art and history, Portraits of Racial Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth inspires, teaches, and captivates. The visually spectacular work highlighting the courage of Americans past and present who dared to advocate for a more just world serves as a reminder of the roads we have traveled and offers hope for future generations in the ongoing struggle for justice, human rights, equality, and equity. The individuals featured in this series and book demand integrity and compel us all to carry forward the work of past generations." -- LaVonda N. Reed"What history do you stand on? What future do you stand for? Robert Shetterly’s dazzling portraits cut through the gauzy cotton wool that entangles us, shake us awake from the deep American sleep of denial, and invite us to question the taken-for-granted as we rise up and move beyond the United States of Amnesia. Here are the peace-makers and the freedom fighters, the dissidents and dissenters, the loving rebels and the justice-seeking radicals—those who know that in an era of ‘alternate facts,’ duplicity and fraud, the simple truth can itself be revolutionary, and the fundamental, first questions can become our guide: Who are your people? Who do you claim? Where do we want to go?" -- Bill Ayers"This book is a fierce concentration of moral truth. It breaks down the borders of false supremacy—white, male, and otherwise—that too many people too easily accept as ‘reality.’ The heart of a sane future beats within." -- Bob Koehler"If you want inspiration in these challenging times, you could do no better than the portraits of patriots in Americans Who Tell the Truth. From leaders in the early days of the civil rights movement to the heroes and heroines in the current fight for racial justice, Rob Shetterly brings to life people whose work has been to build a more just world, and to whom we are all indebted." -- Cecile Richards"Teachers: Introduce your students to Robert Shetterly’s magnificent portraits of racial justice and invite young people to join the current of conscience that flows through our history. How can one not feel hope when surrounded by these defiant truth-tellers—painted by Shetterly with love and respect. This book is a gift to educators; it belongs in every classroom in the United States." -- Bill Bigelow

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Book SynopsisDuring the civil rights era, Memphis gained a reputation for having one of the South’s strongest NAACP branches. But that organization, led by the city’s black elite, was hardly the only driv­ing force in the local struggle against racial injustice. In the late sixties, Black Power proponents advocating economic, political, and cultural self-determination effectively mobilized Memphis’s African American youth, using an array of moderate and radical approaches to protest and change conditions on their campuses and in the community.While Black Power activism on the coasts and in the Midwest has attracted considerable scholarly attention, much less has been written about the movement’s impact outside these hot­beds. In Black Power in the Bluff City, Shirletta J. Kinchen helps redress that imbalance by ex­amining how young Memphis activists like Coby Smith and Charles Cabbage, dissatisfied by the pace of progress in a city emerging from the Jim Crow era, embraced Black Power ideology to con­front such challenges as gross disparities in housing, education, and employment as well as police brutality and harassment. Two closely related Black Power organizations, the Black Organizing Project and the Invaders, became central to the local black youth movement in the late 1960s. Kinchen traces these groups’ participation in the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike—including the controversy over whether their activities precipitated events that culminated in Martin Luther King’s assassination—and their subsequent involvement in War on Poverty programs. The book also shows how Black Power ideology drove activism at the historically black LeMoyne-Owen Col­lege, scene of a 1968 administration-building takeover, and at the predominately white Memphis State University, where African American students transformed the campus by creating parallel institutions that helped strengthen black student camaraderie and consciousness in the face of marginalization.Drawing on interviews with activists, FBI files, newspaper accounts from the period, and many other sources, the author persuasively shows not only how an emerging generation helped define the black freedom struggle in Memphis but also how they applied the tenets of Black Power to shape the broader community.

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Book SynopsisWhen J. Edgar Hoover declared Herbert Aptheker “the most dangerous Communist in the United States,” the notorious FBI director misconstrued his true significance. In this first book-length biography of Aptheker (1915–2003), Gary Murrell provides a balanced yet unflinching assessment of the controversial figure who was at once a leading historian of African America, radical political activist, literary executor of W. E. B. Du Bois, and lifelong member of the American Communist Party. Although blacklisted at U.S. universities, Aptheker published dozens of books, including the groundbreaking American Negro Slave Revolts (1943) and the monumental seven-volume Documentary History of the Negro People (1951–1994).He also edited four volumes of the correspondence and unpublished writings of Du Bois, an achievement that Eric Foner, writing in the New York Times Book Review, called “a milestone in the coming of age of Afro-American history.” As Murrell shows, Aptheker the historian was inseparable from Aptheker the leading Communist Party intellectual, polemicist, and agitator. During the 1960s, his ability to rouse and inspire both black and white student radicals made him one of the few Old Leftists accepted by the New Left. Aptheker had joined the CPUSA during its heyday in the 1930s, convinced that only through the party’s leadership could fascism be defeated and true liberation be achieved: he ended his affiliation five decades later in 1991 after the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In an afterword, Bettina Aptheker adds to Murrell’s narrative by illuminating her mother Fay’s vital contributions to her father’s work and by affirming the particularly devastating challenges of life in a family dedicated to radical political and social change.

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Book SynopsisWhen civil rights leader Hosea Lorenzo Williams died in 2000, U.S. Congressman John Lewis said of him, "Hosea Williams must be looked upon as one of the founding fathers of the new America. Through his actions, he helped liberate all of us."In this first comprehensive biography of Williams, Rolundus Rice demonstrates the truth in Lewis's words and argues that Williams's activism in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was of central importance to the success of the larger civil rights movement. Rice traces Williams's journey from a local activist in Georgia to a national leader and one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s chief lieutenants. He helped plan the Selma-to-Montgomery march and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on "Bloody Sunday." While his hard-charging tactics were counter to the diplomatic approach of other SCLC leaders, Rice argues that it was this contrast in styles that made the organization successful.Andrew Young Jr., former SCLC executive director, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and mayor of Atlanta, provides a foreword.

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Book SynopsisWhen civil rights leader Hosea Lorenzo Williams died in 2000, U.S. Congressman John Lewis said of him, "Hosea Williams must be looked upon as one of the founding fathers of the new America. Through his actions, he helped liberate all of us."In this first comprehensive biography of Williams, Rolundus Rice demonstrates the truth in Lewis's words and argues that Williams's activism in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was of central importance to the success of the larger civil rights movement. Rice traces Williams's journey from a local activist in Georgia to a national leader and one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s chief lieutenants. He helped plan the Selma-to-Montgomery march and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on "Bloody Sunday." While his hard-charging tactics were counter to the diplomatic approach of other SCLC leaders, Rice argues that it was this contrast in styles that made the organization successful.Andrew Young Jr., former SCLC executive director, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and mayor of Atlanta, provides a foreword.

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Book SynopsisWhat did Occupy Wall Street accomplish? While it began as a startling disruption in politics as usual, in The Democratic Ethos Freya Thimsen argues that the movement's long-term importance rests in how its commitment to radical democratic self-organization has been adopted within more conventional forms of politics. Occupy changed what counts as credible democratic coordination and how democracy is performed, as demonstrated in opposition to corporate political influence, rural antifracking activism, and political campaigns.By comparing instances of progressive politics that demonstrate the democratic ethos developed and promoted by Occupy and those that do not, Thimsen illustrates how radical and conventional rhetorical strategies can be brought together to seek democratic change. Combining insights from rhetorical studies, performance studies, political theory, and sociology, The Democratic Ethos offers a set of conceptual tools for analyzing anticorporate democracy-movement politics in the twenty-first century.

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Book SynopsisThe first major study to consider Black women’s activism in rural Arkansas, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps foregrounds activists’ quest to improve Black communities through language and foodways as well as politics and community organizing. In reexamining these efforts, Cherisse Jones-Branch lifts many important figures out of obscurity, positioning them squarely within Arkansas’s agrarian history.The Black women activists highlighted here include home demonstration agents employed by the Arkansas Agricultural Cooperative Extension Service and Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers, all of whom possessed an acute understanding of the difficulties that African Americans faced in rural spaces. Examining these activists through a historical lens, Jones-Branch reveals how educated, middle-class Black women worked with their less-educated rural sisters to create all-female spaces where they confronted economic, educational, public health, political, and theological concerns free from white regulation and interference.Centered on the period between 1914 and 1965, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps brings long-overdue attention to an important chapter in Arkansas history, spotlighting a group of Black women activists who uplifted their communities while subverting the formidable structures of white supremacy.Trade Review“In Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps, Cherisse Jones-Branch offers a ground-breaking, comprehensive study of African American women who worked on behalf of their rural Arkansas communities through the cooperative extension service, educational institutions, and other organizations. By centering Black women’s transformative leadership within the contexts of segregation, global war, racial violence, natural disasters, and the civil rights movement, Jones-Branch brings the voices of rural Black women into larger conversations about the significance of life and labor in the countryside. Painstakingly researched, her thoughtful cultivation of historical records brings to life the Black women who worked in Arkansas as extension agents, farmers, educators, and activists during a period of tremendous transformation.” —Jenny Barker-Devine, author of On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women’s Activism Since 1945 “American rural history needs more women’s history. And rural women’s history needs more Black history. Cherisse Jones-Branch addresses these needs by writing about Black women in Arkansas who had been rendered invisible by previous scholarship. Beginning with a profound respect for Black women leaders, Jones-Branch brings her skillful archival research and her enthusiastic storytelling to the task of setting the historical record straight. Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps makes a major contribution to Arkansas history and American rural history.” —Linda M. Ambrose, author of A Great Rural Sisterhood: Madge Robertson Watt and the ACWW “In impressive detail and lovely, engaging prose, Cherisse Jones-Branch argues that African American women who remained in Arkansas during the years of widespread migration remade the countryside through their struggle to improve their communities’ access to health care, food, political representation, and economic opportunity. With this book, Jones-Branch has established herself as a leading historian not only of rural Black women’s twentieth-century activism but also of American rural history overall.” —Adrienne Monteith Petty, author of Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina since the Civil War

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Book SynopsisWith lively, informative contributions by both scholars and activists, Bucking Conservatism highlights the individuals and groups who challenged Alberta’s conservative status quo in the 60s and 70s. Drawing on archival material, newspaper articles, police reports, and interviews, the contributors examine Alberta’s history through the eyes of Indigenous activists protesting discriminatory legislation and unfulfilled treaty obligations, women and lesbian and gay persons standing up to the heteropatriarchy, student activists arguing for a new democracy, and anti-capitalist environmentalists demanding social change. This book recognizes the lasting influence of Alberta’s noncomformists—those who recognized the need for dissent in a province defined by wealth and right-wing politics—and leaves a set of questions, perhaps sobering ones, for contemporary activists.

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Book SynopsisIn 2011, political protests sprang up across the world. In the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United States unlikely people sparked or led massive protest campaigns from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. These protests were made up of educated and precariously employed young people who challenged the legitimacy of their political leaders, exposed a failure of representation, and expressed their dissatisfaction with their place in the aftermath of financial and economic crisis. This book interrogates what impacts, if any, this global protest cycle had on politics and policy and shows the sometimes unintended ways it continues to influence contemporary political dynamics throughout the world. Proposing a new framework of analysis that calls attention to the content and claims of protests, their global connections, and the responsiveness of political institutions to protest demands, this is one of the few books that not only asks how protest movements are formed but also provides an in-depth examination of what protest movements can accomplish. With contributions examining the political consequences of protest, the roles of social media and the internet in protest organization, left- and right-wing movements in the United States, Chile's student movements, the Arab Uprisings, and much more this collection is essential reading for all those interested in the power of protest to shape our world.Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures Abbreviations Acknowledgements Part I: Concepts and Explanations The Political Consequences of Protest MoisÉs Arce and Roberta Rice How Do We Explain Protest? Social Science, Grievances, and the Puzzle of Collective Action Erica S. Simmons Part II: Mechanisms and Processes Transnational Protest: 'Going Global' in the Current Protest Cycle against Economic Globalization Jeffrey Ayres and Laura Macdonald Collective Action in the Information Age: How Social Media Shapes the Character and Success of Protests Jennifer M. Larson Schools for Democracy? The Role of NGOs in Protests in Democracies in the Global South Carew E. Boulding Part III: Cases and Consequences The Ebbing and Flowing of Political Opportunity Structures: Revolution, Counter-Revolution, and the Arab Uprisings Paul Kingston 'You Taught Us to Give an Opinion, Now Learn How to Listen:' The Manifold Political Consequences of Chile's Student Movement Sofia Donoso and NicolÁs M. Somma Protest Cycles in the United States: From the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street to Sanders and Trump Ted Goertzel Conclusions Re-Thinking Protest Impacts MoisÉs Arce, Roberta Rice, and Eduardo Silva Index

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Book Synopsis‘The silence of the cell is less disturbing than the deliberate silence of the human beings who come and go. I know that it is part of the process, designed to break my morale, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I calculate that I am speaking less than twenty words a day, and begin to wonder whether my vocal chords will dry up and wither if this goes on … I have never been very talkative, but now I begin to hunger after talk more strongly than for either food or drink.’Lionel ‘Rusty’ Bernstein was arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, on 11 July 1963 and tried for sabotage, alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other leaders of the African National Congress and Umkhonto we Sizwe in what came to be known as the Rivonia Trial. He was acquitted in June 1964, but was immediately rearrested. After being released on bail, he fl ed with his wife Hilda into exile, followed soon afterwards by their family. This classic text, fi rst published in 1999, is a remarkable man’s personal memoir of a life in South African resistance politics from the late 1930s to the 1960s. In recalling the events in which he participated, and the way in which the apartheid regime affected the lives of those involved in the opposition movements, Rusty Bernstein provides valuable insights into the social and political history of the era.Trade ReviewThe memory so eloquently contained in this book tells especially the younger generations of South Africans who live in freedom that they should never forget that, indeed, that freedom was not free.' - Thabo Mbeki, anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, 1994–2008Table of Contents Foreword (by Thabo Mbeki) The Rivonia Trial Attorney Remembers (by Lord Joel Joffe) Prologue 1. Starting Blocks 2. Time at the Crossroads 3. A Foot in Each Camp 4. Across the Divide 5. Spoils of War 6. Warning Winds 7. A Line in the Sand 8. Goodbye to All That 9. Overground – Underground 10. To Speak of Freedom 11. Power, Treason and Plot 12. Cracking the Fortress Wall 13. Exercise Behind Bars 14. To Put Up or Shut Up 15. Things Fall Apart 16. To Sit in Solemn Silence 17. In a Deep Dark Dock 18. Telling It As It Was 19. In A Closing Net 20. Over, and Out Epilogue Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe 2017 publication of Betrayal of the Promise, the report that detailed the systematic nature of state capture, marked a key moment in South Africa’s most recent struggle for democracy. In the face of growing evidence of corruption and of the weakening of state and democratic institutions, it provided a powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance within the Tripartite Alliance and across civil society. Working often secretly, the authors consolidated large amounts of evidence from a variety of sources. They showed that the Jacob Zuma administration was not simply a criminal network but part of an audacious political project to break the hold of white business on the economy and to create a new class of black industrialists. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet were central to these plans.Shadow State is an updated version of the original, explosive report that changed South Africa’s recent history. It introduces a whole new language to discuss state capture, showing how SOEs were ‘repurposed’, how political power was shifting away from constitutional bodies to ‘kitchen cabinets’, and how a ‘shadow state’ at odds with the country’s constitutional framework was being built.Trade Review"The analysis is so brilliant. I can’t think of a better example of how academic research can shape the public debate." - Patrick Heller, Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs, Brown University. "This is a compelling example of how committed academics conducting rigorous research and analysis can help crystallize our understanding of fundamental problems in our society." - Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the South African Communist PartyTable of Contents List of figures and tables Abbreviations and acronyms Key terms Acknowledgements Foreword Mcebisi Jonas Prologue Introduction Chapter 1 Structuring the Capture of the State Chapter 2 The Politics of Betrayal Chapter 3 Power, Authority and Audacity: How the Shadow State Was Built Chapter 4 Repurposing Governance Chapter 5 Conclusion Afterword Ferial Haffajee

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Book SynopsisPatrick van Rensburg (1931-2017) was an anti-apartheid activist and self-made 'alternative educationist' whose work received international recognition with the Right Livelihood Award in 1981.Born in KwaZulu-Natal into what he described as a 'very ordinary South African family that believed in the virtue of racism', Van Rensburg became a self-styled rebel who tirelessly pursued his own vision of a brighter future for emerging societies in post-colonial southern Africa.His emotional and intellectual struggle against his upbringing and cultural roots led him to reject his life of white privilege in South Africa. Determined to prevent the emergence of a privileged black elite in post-colonial society, he devoted his life to implementing an alternative, egalitarian approach to education, focusing on quality and functional schooling for the majority. Rewarded with the internationally prestigious Right Livelihood Award for his unique contribution to education, he saw this work as a 'necessary tool of development'.Exiled from South Africa in 1960 because of his involvement in the London boycott campaign that gave birth to the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Van Rensburg moved to Botswana (then Bechuanaland). There he founded cooperatives, provided vocational training and was among the earliest educationists to espouse the discipline of development studies.Perhaps his best-known legacy is the Swaneng Hill School, which he founded to provide an educational home for primary school 'dropouts' through a curriculum that combined theory and practice, and academic and manual labour. He involved his pupils in building their school, running it, providing their own food, and making their own equipment and furniture.Van Rensburg was an innovative and charismatic visionary who captured the zeitgeist of the late twentieth century, and whose work and vision still have resonance for debates in educational policy today.Trade ReviewThis is a story that has to be told and Van Rensburg has found a worthy biographer … The dominant image is of a man who had a great appetite for life: work, projects, parties, women, debate, travel, but who is simultaneously a semi-heroic, semi-tragic figure. — Linda Chisholm, Professor in the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg Patrick van Rensburg’s philosophies and projects were beneficial, stimulating our thinking and urging us to reshape Botswana’s education. He shook our ideas. Kevin Shillington is to be commended for bringing his story to a wide audience. This book should be read by anyone interested in education, as Pat’s Education with Production model is relevant to the whole education ladder, from early childhood through to university. — Gaositwe K. T. Chiepe, educationist and politician, Minister of Education, Botswana, 1995–1999Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations and acronyms List of illustrations Maps Introduction Chapter 1 Origins and Identity in South Africa Chapter 2 An Anglophone South African, 1936-1948 Chapter 3 The Making of an Afrikaner, 1949-1953 Chapter 4 Diplomat and Rebel, 1953-1957 Chapter 5 Anti-Apartheid Activist, 1957-1959 Chapter 6 Boycott, 1959-1960 Chapter 7 Into Exile, 1960-1961 Chapter 8 Return to Africa, 1961-1962 Chapter 9 The Founding of Swaneng Hill School, 1962-1963 Chapter 10 Challenging 'the Ladder to Privilege', 1963-1965 Chapter 11 The Alternative Educationist, 1965-1967 Chapter 12 Expansion and Replication, 1967-1969 Chapter 13 Time of Crisis, 1969-1971 Chapter 14 Education with Production, the 1970s Chapter 15 Foundation for Education with Production and Spreading the Word, the 1980s Chapter 16 Education with Production and South Africa, the 1990s Chapter 17 Return to Botswana Epilogue Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis

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