Best of
Activism

2007

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex


Incite! Women of Color Against ViolencePaula X. Rojas - 2007
    From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks and government surveillance rises, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the nonprofit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers original essays by radical activists from around the globe who are critically rethinking the long-term consequences of this investment. Together with educators and nonprofit staff they finally name the “nonprofit industrial complex” and ask hard questions: How did politics shape the birth of the nonprofit model? How does 501(c)(3) status allow the state to co-opt political movements? Activists--or careerists? How do we fund the movement outside this complex? Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded is an unbeholden exposé of the “nonprofit industrial complex” and its quietly devastating role in managing dissent.

Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign


Michael K. Honey - 2007
    Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice.With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, Michael Honey brings to life the magnetic characters who clashed on the Memphis battlefield: stalwart black workers; fiery black ministers; volatile, young, black-power advocates; idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists; the first black members of the Memphis city council; the white upper crust who sought to prevent change or conflagration; and, finally, the magisterial Martin Luther King Jr., undertaking a Poor People's Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI, and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America.

Come Alive!: The Spirited Art of Sister Corita


Julie Ault - 2007
    After more than 30 years, at the end of the 1960s, she left the order to devote herself to making her own work. Over a 35-year career she made watercolors, posters, books and banners--and most of all, serigraphs--in an accessible and dynamic style that appropriated techniques from advertising, consumerism and graffiti. The earliest, which she began showing in 1951, borrowed phrases and depicted images from the Bible; by the 1960s, she was using song lyrics and publicity slogans as raw material. Eschewing convention, she produced cheap, readily available multiples, including a postage stamp. Her work was popular but largely neglected by the art establishment--though it was always embraced by such design luminaries as Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller and Saul Bass. More recently, she has been increasingly recognized as one of the most innovative and unusual Pop artists of the 1960s, battling the political and religious establishments, revolutionizing graphic design and making some of the most striking--and joyful--American art of her era, all while living and practicing as a Catholic nun. This first study of her work, organized by Julie Ault on the 20th anniversary of Kent's death, with essays by Ault and Daniel Berrigan, is the first to examine this important American outsider artist's life and career, and contains more than 90 illustrations, many of which are reproduced for the first time, in vibrant, and occasionally Day-Glo, color.

From Dusk 'Til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement


Keith Mann - 2007
    Daring stories of masked liberators spiriting animals from labs in the middle of the night, militant vegans firebombing egg farm trucks, and the dramatic government response.Fifteen years in the making, From Dusk 'til Dawn was born during Keith Mann's lengthy prison sentence for Animal Liberation Front actions. His escape from custody in 1994 nearly scuppered the project but his determination to document the growth of the animal liberation movement ensured its completion. From Dusk 'til Dawn is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand why people break the law and give their lives to rescue animals from exploitation.

The Past Didn't Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements


April Rosenblum - 2007
    

NOT A BOOK


NOT A BOOK - 2007
    A powerful visual tool building on Joanna Macy’s book Coming Back to Life, this valuable resource is a light in the political darkness of our time. The lively, personal presentation of Joanna’s work will appeal to workshop facilitators and participants alike, as well as anyone with an interest in personal transformation.Joanna Macy is an eco-philosopher, scholar, teacher, activist, and the author of seven previous books.

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones


Carole Boyce Davies - 2007
    Jones is buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery, to the left of Karl Marx—a location that Boyce Davies finds fitting given how Jones expanded Marxism-Leninism to incorporate gender and race in her political critique and activism.Claudia Cumberbatch Jones was born in Trinidad. In 1924, she moved to New York, where she lived for the next thirty years. She was active in the Communist Party from her early twenties onward. A talented writer and speaker, she traveled throughout the United States lecturing and organizing. In the early 1950s, she wrote a well-known column, “Half the World,” for the Daily Worker. As the U.S. government intensified its efforts to prosecute communists, Jones was arrested several times. She served nearly a year in a U.S. prison before being deported and given asylum by Great Britain in 1955. There she founded The West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News and the Caribbean Carnival, an annual London festival that continues today as the Notting Hill Carnival. Boyce Davies examines Jones’s thought and journalism, her political and community organizing, and poetry that the activist wrote while she was imprisoned. Looking at the contents of the FBI file on Jones, Boyce Davies contrasts Jones’s own narration of her life with the federal government’s. Left of Karl Marx establishes Jones as a significant figure within Caribbean intellectual traditions, black U.S. feminism, and the history of communism.

Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire


David Graeber - 2007
    Not only does he accomplish this profound feat, he redoubles it by the critical task—now more urgent than ever—of making the possibilities of other people’s worlds the basis for understanding our own.” —Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago“Graeber’s ideas are rich and wide-ranging; he pushes us to expand the boundaries of what we admit to be possible, or even thinkable.”—Steven Shaviro, Wayne State UniversityIn this new collection, David Graeber revisits questions raised in his popular book, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Written in an unpretentious style that uses accessible and entertaining language to convey complex theoretical ideas, these twelve essays cover a lot of ground, including the origins of capitalism, the history of European table manners, love potions in rural Madagascar, and the phenomenology of giant puppets at street protests. But they’re linked by a clear purpose: to explore the nature of social power and the forms that resistance to it have taken, or might take in the future.Anarchism is currently undergoing a worldwide revival, in many ways replacing Marxism as the theoretical and moral center of new revolutionary social movements. It has, however, left little mark on the academy. While anarchists and other visionaries have turned to anthropology for ideas and inspiration, anthropologists are reluctant to enter into serious dialogue. David Graeber is not. These essays, spanning almost twenty years, show how scholarly concerns can be of use to radical social movements, and how the perspectives of such movements shed new light on debates within the academy.David Graeber has written for Harper’s Magazine, New Left Review, and numerous scholarly journals. He is the author or editor of four books and currently lives in New York City.In Oakland, California on March 24, 2015 a fire destroyed the AK Press warehouse along with several other businesses. Please consider visiting the AK Press website to learn more about the fundraiser to help them and their neighbors.

Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer


Richard Shelton - 2007
    Richard Shelton was a young English professor in 1970 when a convict named Charles Schmid—a serial killer dubbed the “Pied Piper of Tucson” in national magazines—shared his brooding verse. But for Shelton, the novelty of meeting a death-row monster became a thirty-year commitment to helping prisoners express themselves. Shelton began organizing creative writing workshops behind bars, and in this gritty memoir he offers up a chronicle of reaching out to forgotten men and women—and of creativity blossoming in a repressive environment. He tells of published students such as Paul Ashley, Greg Forker, Ken Lamberton, and Jimmy Santiago Baca who have made names for themselves through their writing instead of their crimes. Shelton also recounts the bittersweet triumph of seeing work published by men who later met with agonizing deaths, and the despair of seeing the creative strides of inmates broken by politically motivated transfers to private prisons. And his memoir bristles with hard-edged experiences, ranging from inside knowledge of prison breaks to a workshop conducted while a riot raged outside a barricaded door. Reflecting on his decision to tutor Schmid, Shelton sees that the choice “has led me through bloody tragedies and terrible disappointments to a better understanding of what it means to be human.”Crossing the Yard is a rare story of professional fulfillment—and a testament to the transformative power of writing.

After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art


Eleanor Heartney - 2007
    Today her insightful critique serves as a benchmark against which the progress of women artists may be measured. In this book, four prominent critics and curators describe the impact of women artists on contemporary art since the advent of the feminist movement. Following a comprehensive essay assessing the changes in the situation of women artists, the authors examine in depth the careers of twelve outstanding artists: Marina Abramowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Ellen Gallagher, Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Elizabeth Murray, Shirin Neshat, Judy Pfaff, Dana Schutz, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Nancy Spero. Each artist's accomplishments and her influence on contemporaries including younger male and female artists is explored. A preface by Nochlin and a concluding essay with extensive statistical documentation frame this essential volume.

Get Political For Animals and Win the Laws They Need


Julie E. Lewin - 2007
    The key to your success is political action.As all other grassroots issue groups know, when it comes to the lawmaking arena, there is no substitute for the leverage of endorsements. (Lobbying for a charitable organization and sending legislative alerts only nibble at the fringes of political power.) It’s not at all hard. A few advocates can make it happen.

Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for Power in Your Community


Joan Minieri - 2007
    Authors Joan Minieri and Paul Getsos share stories and tools from their nationally recognized and award-winning work of building a community-led organization, training community leaders, and conducting campaigns that changed public policy and delivered concrete results to tens of thousands of people. This how-to manual includes:- In-depth analysis of how to launch and win a campaign- Tools and guidelines for training people to lead their own campaigns and organizations- Insights for using technology effectively, building more powerful alliances, and engaging in the social justice movement

Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection


Erin E. Williams - 2007
    Pets are a beloved feature of most American households, many enjoying the most luxurious food and accessories, and reveling in the love and companionship from their human families. At the same time, animals raised for food or clothing, or used for medical experiments and product testing, often live painful, lonely lives in small cages from birth to death. And wild animals suffer in other ways — losing their lives as their habitats disappear, being hunted for trophies, and finding themselves removed from their homes for the exotic pet trade. Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection offers a concise yet complete overview of the problems of animal suffering, linking them to larger issues of human and environmental exploitation. Authors Erin E. Williams and Margo DeMello examine industries that exploit animals — meat processing companies and agribusinesses; medical experimentation and cosmetic testing facilities; the entertainment industry (circuses, rodeos, zoos, racing, and film making); the pet industry; the fur and leather industry; and commercial and recreational activities centered on hunting. The authors also consider the adverse environmental effects of animal exploitation from pollution to deforestation and the depletion of biodiversity.In addition, they look at the connections between the poor treatment of animals and human exploitation of immigrants, slaughterhouse and farm workers, as well as the larger issues of globalization, hunger, and the negative consequences for Third World nations. Highly informative yet very reader-friendly, this book not only explores the connections between animal and human suffering, but also integrates solid information with positive case studies of rescued animals and inspiring stories of individual successes.

Women of Courage: Intimate Stories from Afghanistan


Katherine Kiviat - 2007
    Women of Courage shares an intimate look at the inspiring women who are forging a new future in Afghanistan and playing a crucial role in the changing landscape of this turbulent nation.

Sea Sick


Alanna Mitchell - 2007
    Most of Earth’s oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the sea. These humble, one-celled organisms, rather than the spectacular rain forests, are the true lungs of the planet.• Climate control. Our climate is regulated by the ocean’s currents, winds, and water-cycle activity.Sea Sick is the first book to examine the current state of the world’s oceans — the great unexamined ecological crisis of the planet — and the fact that we are altering everything about them; temperature, salinity, acidity, ice cover, volume, circulation, and, of course, the life within them.Alanna Mitchell joins the crews of leading scientists in nine of the global ocean’s hotspots to see firsthand what is really happening around the world. Whether it’s the impact of coral reef bleaching, the puzzle of the oxygen-less dead zones such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico, or the shocking implications of the changing Ph balance of the sea, Mitchell explains the science behind the story to create an engaging, accessible yet authoritative account.From the Hardcover edition.

Home Girls Make Some Noise!: Hip-Hop Feminism Anthology


Gwendolyn D. PoughMaya Freelon - 2007
    The anthology explores Hip-Hop as a worldview, as an epistemology grounded in the experiences of communities of color under advanced capitalism, as a cultural site for rearticulating identity and sexual politics. With critical essays, cultural critiques, interviews, personal narratives, fiction, poetry, and artwork. The contributors are varied, from women working within the Hip-Hop sphere, Hip-Hop feminists and activists "on the ground," as well as scholars, writers, and journalists.

Consciousness-In-Action: Toward an Integral Psychology of Liberation & Transformation


Raúl Quiñones Rosado - 2007
    Drawing from psychology, sociology, social and integral theories, and over thirty years of contemplative practice and community work, this book proposes an integral framework for human well-being and development, a psychosocial analysis of the impact of identity-based power, and a libratory-transformative praxis for transcending internalized superiority and inferiority rooted in racism, sexism, Eurocentrism, classism, and other forms of institutional oppression. Consciousness-in-Action is required reading in academic programs in psychology, counseling, social work, and social justice education in the US and Latin America. Also used by political and spiritual activists, community organizers, anti-oppression trainers, integral practitioners and helping professionals, this work has been presented to audiences internationally.

Radical lace & subversive knitting


David Revere McFadden - 2007
    Featuring 27 artists from seven countries, this exhibition exhibits work that ranges from Althea Merback's microknit garments (1:144 scale) to large-scale, site-specific installations. Artists employ a variety of media, from traditional yarns and laces, to found objects and video, and explore contemporary currents in art practice of socially engaged, participatory work. An illustrated, full-color catalogue published by MAD that includes an essay by Chief curator David McFadden; illustrations of works by each artist, along with biographical essays; and an index.

Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs


Zoe Weil - 2007
    Nor are they anticipating the dangerous adventure in store for them. They seem like normal kids. But are they? Claude has famous parents and sticks to the rules. Medea's got a scholarship to a fancy private school and can't get in trouble. How is it that they are thrown together, trying to outsmart Manhattan criminals? And why do they care so much about the weird Ms. Rattlebee? Find out what makes this unlikely pair begin to view the world differently, and to risk everything. Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs is a riveting story that will make kids eager for more while offering them true heroes for today's world. This is a book that gives kids not only what they most want but also what they most need—protagonists who embody courage, compassion, and care.

Women Who Light the Dark


Paola Gianturco - 2007
    These women may lack material resources, but they possess a wealth of an even more precious resource: imagination—their imaginations light the dark. Women in Morocco create and produce plays that educate illiterate people about women’s rights. Girls in Zimbabwe compose and perform poetry that shocks communities into fighting child rape. In Viet Nam, counselors heal survivors of domestic violence with line dancing, art and games. Teachers in India invent puppet shows that help homeless children understand AIDS. Brazilian math teachers inspire girls from the favelas to learn arithmetic by originating fashion shows. Roma women in Slovakia collaborate with non-Roma women to design postcards, kindling communication in place of suspicion. Lesbians in Argentina develop and stage street skits, demonstrating against discrimination. A master ballet teacher instructs a thousand poor Cuban children in classical dance. Sometimes imagination takes the form of innovative strategies. In Nepal, women teach their sisters to drive taxis and guide treks, and in Nicaragua, to become welders, carpenters and electricians—all, supposedly, men’s jobs. In Kenya, mothers get wells dug so their daughters can go to school instead of walking seven hours to fetch water. In Cambodia, doctors and nurses conduct mobile clinics and arrange loans to give indigent women the health and funds to start businesses, foiling sex traffickers who try to lure women with promises of income. In Cameroun, medical specialists train traditional rulers and healers whose behavior has inadvertently spread AIDS, to become health educators. Recreational activists in the United States introduce women with disabilities to challenge courses, camping, whitewater rafting and swimming, empowering them to lead others who are disabled. Travel with photojournalist Paola Gianturco: climb Annapurna; eat lunch while soldiers carry sandbags to the roof; watch a traditional healer at work; attend a Muslim reception with ambassadors, rabbis, bishops and cabinet ministers; witness a ceremony that welcomes indigenous babies to the world. Listen as 129 women in 15 countries on five continents describe their lives, dreams and work. They will inspire you with their courage, creativity and effectiveness as they kindle hope and possibilities for their families, communities, countries and our world.

Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States


Jules Boykoff - 2007
    The strategy is multifaceted and sophisticated, as Jules Boykoff explains in this timely analysis of how the government has marginalized, channeled, infiltrated, co-opted, and repressed progressive movements in the US over the past hundred years. Paranoia and freak-out only play into their hands. Read Boykoff to understand where the real danger lies and how best to defend against it."—Robin HahnelJules Boykoff teaches political science at Pacific University, Oregon.

Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies


Boaventura de Sousa Santos - 2007
    Another Knowledge is Possible explores the struggles against moral and cultural imperialism and neoliberal globalization that have taken place over the past few decades, and the alternatives that have emerged in countries throughout the developing world from Brazil and Colombia, to India, South Africa and Mozambique. In particular it looks at the issue of biodiversity, the confrontation between scientific and non- scientific knowledges, and the increasing difficulty experienced by great numbers of people in accessing information and scientific- technological knowledge.

Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran


Nima Naghibi - 2007
    Yet, following the 1979 revolution, indigenous Iranian feminists became more vocal in their resistance to this characterization.In Rethinking Global Sisterhood, Nima Naghibi makes powerful connections among feminism, imperialism, and the discourses of global sisterhood. Naghibi investigates topics including the state-sponsored Women’s Organization of Iran and the involvement of feminists such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem in the Iranian feminism movement before and during the 1979 revolution. With a potent analysis of cinema, she examines the veiled woman in the films of Tahmineh Milani, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Kim Longinotto, and Mahnaz Afzali.At a time when Western relations with the Muslim world are in crisis, Rethinking Global Sisterhood provides much-needed insights and explores the limitations and possibilities of cross-cultural feminist social and political interventions.Nima Naghibi is assistant professor of English at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship


Charles R. Hale - 2007
    Some advocate on behalf of the communities they study; others incorporate the knowledge and leadership of their informants directly into the process of knowledge production. What ethical, political, and practical tensions arise in the course of such work? In this wide-ranging and multidisciplinary volume, leading scholar-activists map the terrain on which political engagement and academic rigor meet.Contributors: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Edmund T. Gordon, Davydd Greenwood, Joy James, Peter Nien-chu Kiang, George Lipsitz, Samuel Martínez, Jennifer Bickham Mendez, Dani Nabudere, Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Jemima Pierre, Laura Pulido, Shannon Speed, Shirley Suet-ling Tang, João Vargas

Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority


Josh MacPhee - 2007
    The movement against corporate globalization has brought anti-authoritarian politics into the forefront of world consciousness, but what do we know—and what have we seen, really—of the cultural and aesthetic sides of these and other rebellions against the status quo? To date, precious little has been written by anarchists and anti-authoritarians about the role of art and culture in society, and in revolutionary movements like these.Realizing the Impossible is an inclusive and sprawling collection of art and writings that addresses this gap in our understanding of revolutionary movements. Do-it--yourself printmaking, Zapatista video, street art in Argentina’s popular uprisings, radical puppetry, the monuments to Haymarket martyrs, turn-of-the-century Australian Industrial Workers of the World printmakers, illustrator Clifford Harper, and wobbly poet Carlos Cortez are just a few themes in this collection that bridges time and geographical and cultural boundaries.

The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA


Norm Phelps - 2007
    After describing the roots of animal rights in the ancient world, author Norm Phelps follows the development of animal protection through the Enlightenment, the anti-vivisection battles of the Victorian Era, and the birth of the modern animal rights movement with the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. In a brisk, readable narrative, The Longest Struggle traces the campaigns of animal rights pioneers like Henry Spira, Alex Hershaft, and Ingrid Newkirk, as well as leaders who have come more recently on the scene like Heidi Prescott, Karen Davis, and Bruce Friedrich. Always grounding his story in its historical setting, Phelps describes the counterattack that the animal abuse industries launched in the 1990s and analyzes the controversies that have roiled the movement almost from the beginning, including "national groups vs. grass roots," "abolitionists vs. new welfarists," and activists who favor arson and intimidation vs. those who support only peaceful, legal forms of protest. The Longest Struggle concludes with an overview of current campaigns and tactics, and an assessment of the state of the movement as we enter a new century, including the threat represented by an overzealous "war on terror". Thoroughly researched and annotated, The Longest Struggle reflects its author's two decades as an animal rights activist and his access to movement leaders who have shared with him their personal stories of campaigns that made animal rights history. At once an accessible history of animal protection thought and a revealing narrative of campaigns for animal rights, The Longest Struggle is must read material for everyone who wants to understand the most radical social justice movement of our time.

Dear Self: A Year In The Life Of A Welfare Mother


Richelene Mitchell - 2007
    Mitchell was born in the rural south, the daughter of an African American sharecropper. She would venture to the northern ghetto of Philadelphia to enhance her educational opportunities. Hence, her early life was shaped by the twin forces defining African America life in the twentieth century: the rural south and the urban north. Mitchell's promising academic career was curtailed by an eventually failed marriage that rendered her a single mother of seven children living in a sprawling public housing project. Forced to deal with the humiliation of public assistance, she chronicled a year of her life, 1973, in this penetrating journal. Though written over twenty years ago, her intimate experience with and intricate insights into the informing and penetrating light on race reality faced by an expanding American underclass are as relevant today as they were then. She sheds light on poverty, mothering, gender relations and many other pertinent issues. This book is a valuable resource for all of those seeking to understand the reality faced by millions of Americans whose plight rarely finds an informed and articulate voice.

A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West


James J. Lorence - 2007
    Initially motivated by religious conviction and driven by a vision of an open, democratic, and nonracist society, West was also a passionate advocate for the region's traditional values. This biography balances his literary work with political and educational activities, placing West's poetry in the context of his fight for social justice and racial equality. James J. Lorence uses previously unexamined sources to explore West's early involvement in organizing miners and other workers for the Socialist and Communist Parties during the 1930s. In documenting West's lifetime commitment to creating a nonracist, egalitarian South, A Hard Journey furnishes the spotlight he deserves as a pioneering figure in twentieth-century Southern radicalism.

American Indian Nonfiction: An Anthology of Writings, 1760s–1930s


Bernd C. PeyerJohn Ridge - 2007
    This collection of political writings covers nearly two centuries and represents a historical survey of the development of Indian nonfiction prose, from the missionary-trained writers of the late eighteenth century to the members of the first Indian intellectual network in the early twentieth century.Included are personal letters, sermons, printed speeches, autobiographical sketches, editorials, pamphlets, and humorous pieces. From early writers such as Samson Occom to twentieth-century writers such as Will Rogers and Luther Standing Bear, these authors were deeply committed to the welfare of their Native communities. Many of the pieces were quite popular in their day but have been lost to time.Bernd C. Peyer traces the historical development of Indian literature from its beginnings in seventeenth-century New England to the emergence of the national Society of American Indians. This collection shows that American Indian prose has a long and diverse heritage. While not as well known as its counterparts in fiction and poetry, Native nonfiction writing posed probing questions, expressed political beliefs, and confronted the challenges facing Indian-white relations. Many of the documents Peyer has gathered here are otherwise inaccessible to the general public, making this anthology a valuable and unique resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in Indian nonfiction.

Brave New West: Morphing Moab at the Speed of Greed


Jim Stiles - 2007
    What kind of economy would prevent Moab from becoming yet another ghost town? For more than two decades, environmentalists in southeast Utah have had a simple answer to this question: replace extractive industries—mining, timber, and cattle—with an economy catering to “green” tourists with hotels, restaurants, and bars. They feel that if these lands can be spared further degradation by huge industries, the West could begin to thrive on something cleaner and more lucrative. But Stiles sees a downside to this seemingly idyllic vision. Bringing insight based on decades of residence in Moab, he makes a provocative and compelling argument that the economy most environmentalists hail as the solution to the woes of the rural West is in fact creating an unprecedented impact of its own. In recent years, Moab and other rural towns across the West have seen a massive influx of urbanites fleeing crowded cities in search of a simpler life. Yet Stiles also observes that these transplants are often unwilling to accept the isolation and lack of services that characterize genuine rural life. Believing themselves to be liberal, sensitive, enlightened environmentalists, they nevertheless bring with them exactly the type of lifestyle and ecological impact that they sought to leave behind and, in the process, create a community that no longer serves the native inhabitants. With a blend of travelogue, local color, and geography, Stiles engages readers with folksy humor while defending the lifestyle of the “pre-cappuccino rural Westerners” and exposing the paradox that underlies the professed good intentions of liberal newcomers.

Reproductive Restraints


Sanjam Ahluwalia - 2007
    Sanjam Ahluwalia draws attention to the history of Indian birth control by including western activists such as Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes alongside important Indian campaigners. In revealing the elitist politics of middle-class feminists, Indian nationalists, Western activists, colonial authorities, and the medical establishment, Ahluwalia finds that they all sought to rationalize procreation and regulate women while invoking competing notions of freedom, femininity, and family. _x000B__x000B_Ahluwalia's remarkable interviews with practicing midwives in rural northern India fills a gaping void in the documentary history of birth control and shows that the movement has had little appeal to nonelite groups in India. She argues that elitist birth control efforts failed to account for Indian women's values and needs and have worked to restrict reproductive rights rather than liberate subaltern Indian women since colonial times. _x000B__x000B_