Best of
Activism

2010

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power


Danielle L. McGuire - 2010
    Rosa Parks was often described as a sweet and reticent elderly woman whose tired feet caused her to defy segregation on Montgomery’s city buses, and whose supposedly solitary, spontaneous act sparked the 1955 bus boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. The truth of who Rosa Parks was and what really lay beneath the 1955 boycott is far different from anything previously written. In this important book, Danielle McGuire writes about the rape in 1944 of a twenty-four-year-old mother and sharecropper, Recy Taylor, who strolled toward home after an evening of singing and praying at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. Seven white men, armed with knives and shotguns, ordered the young woman into their green Chevrolet, raped her, and left her for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator and organizer—Rosa Parks—to Abbeville. In taking on this case, Parks launched a movement that exposed a ritualized history of sexual assault against black women and added fire to the growing call for change.

Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC


Faith S. Holsaert - 2010
    Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to survive. The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.   Each story reveals how the struggle for social change was formed, supported, and maintained by the women who kept their "hands on the freedom plow." As the editors write in the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world."

Perseverance


Margaret J. Wheatley - 2010
    The topics are not the usual inspiring, feel good, rah-rah messages.  Instead, Wheatley focuses on the situations, feelings, and challenges that can, over time, cause us to give up or lose our way.  Perseverance is a discipline—it’s a day-by-day decision not to give up.  Therefore, we have to notice the moments when we feel lost or overwhelmed or betrayed or exhausted and note how we respond to them.  And we have to notice the rewarding times, when we experience the joy of working together on something hard but worthwhile, when we realize we’ve made a small difference.  Each topic is a brief essay, meant to be read as needed. (The book is not intended to be read through all at once.)  You can thumb through the book and find what you need or what attracts you in the moment.  Every essay names a behavior or dynamic, puts it into a broader human or timeless perspective, and offers ways for the reader to either live with or transcend that dynamic.  The reader is also challenged by the direct voice of the book. Wheatley wants people to be able to see themselves, their situation, and to assume responsibility for changing the situation or their reaction to it if it’s one that troubles them. (There deliberately are no examples of other people—the reader is the example; their personal experience is the only case material.) The content (essays and quotes) is drawn from many spiritual traditions and diverse cultures.  The book is deeply grounded spiritually and also quite inclusive—accessing human experience and wisdom from many sources. Both this grounding and inclusiveness support the essential message—human being throughout time and history have persevered.  We’re just the most recent ones to face these challenges.

Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six


Jordan Flaherty - 2010
    In the tradition of Howard Zinn this could be called 'The People's History of the Storm.' Jordan Flaherty was there on the front lines."Eve Ensler, playwright of "The Vagina Monologues" and activist and founder of V-Day"Jordan Flaherty brings the sharp analysis and dedication of a seasoned organizer to his writing, and insightful observation to his reporting. He unfailingly has his ear to the ground in a city that continues to reveal the floodlines of structural racism in America."Tram Nguyen, author of "We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11""Floodlines" is a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans. The book weaves the stories of gay rappers, Mardi Gras Indians, Arab and Latino immigrants, public housing residents, and grassroots activists in the years before and after Katrina. From post-Katrina evacuee camps to torture testimony at Angola Prison to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, "Floodlines" tells the stories behind the headlines from an unforgettable time and place in history.Jordan Flaherty is a writer and community organizer based in New Orleans. In addition to his award-winning post-Katrina journalism, he was the first journalist with a national audience to write about the Jena Six case and played an important role in bringing the story to theattention of the world. He has produced news segments for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and "Democracy Now!" and appeared as a guest on a wide range of television and radio shows, including CNN's "American Morning," "Anderson Cooper 360," "CNN Headline News," "GRITtv," "Keep Hope Alive with Reverend Jesse Jackson," and both local and nationally syndicated shows on National Public Radio.

Celebrate People's History!: The Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution


Josh MacPhee - 2010
    Celebrate People's History presents these essential works as a visual tour through decades and across continents, from the perspective of some of the most socially engaged artists working today.This beautifully rendered book includes artwork by Cristy Road, Swoon, Nicole Schulman, Christopher Cardinale, Sabrina Jones, Eric Drooker, Klutch, Carrie Moyer, Laura Whitehorn, Dan Berger, Ricardo Levins Morales, Chris Stain, and more. Celebrate People's History is a treasure trove of images and stories that will inspire anyone looking to better understand the history and legacy of activism.

"Come Out My People!": God's Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond


Wes Howard-Brook - 2010
    Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, these two religions battled for the hearts and minds of the people in claiming radically divergent views of who YHWH is and what it looks like to be YHWH's people. Though Jesus was killed by the upholders of empire, his resurrection was the definitive vindication of the religion of creation. s a consequence, those who follow his path can accept no violence or domination tward people or creation in his name. While many recent scholars have studies the imperial context of the New Testament, this is the first book to trace this theme throughout the entire Bible.

This Is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades


Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - 2010
    "This is an Honour Song" is a collection of narratives, poetry, and essays exploring the broad impact of the 1990 resistance at Kanehsata: ke, otherwise known as the "Oka Crisis." The book is written by leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, scholars, activists and traditional people, and is sung as an Honour Song celebrating the commitment, sacrifices, and achievements of the Kanien'kehaka individuals and communities involved.

Finding Danny


Linzi Glass - 2010
    In her search to find Danny, Bree is thrust into the world of animals in need. With the help and guidance of animal rescuer Rayleen, Bree's heart is opened to the plight of the dogs in the downtown Vox Street shelter. Before long, her emptiness about her own loss shifts into action – and her quest to find Danny and her newfound mission to save the shelter dogs soon become one.Longtime animal rescuer Linzi Glass has crafted a singular story of finding oneself in the search for finding another, a compelling emotional journey as well as a call-to-action for animal-lovers everywhere.

A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency


Jeff Conant - 2010
    While much has been written on the history of the Zapatista insurgency and on the communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos, very little has been said about Zapatismo: the ideologies, organizing methodologies, and communications strategies of the movement. The appeal of the Zapatistas, and their survival, has as much to do with their goals as with the compelling and wildly effective language and aesthetics they’ve used to convey their vision. Weaving together varied elements of poetics and symbolism, Zapatismo has emerged as something entirely new: a resolutely radical public relations campaign for human liberation.The first “postmodern revolution” presented itself to the world through a complex and evolving web of propaganda, using a wide range of media: the colorful communiqués of Marcos; the ski masks, uniforms, toy dolls, and other accoutrements of the insurgent or sympathizer; and murals, songs, and other popular cultural forms. Employing persuasive publicity, myths, and symbols, the Zapatistas both communicated their message and developed a clear aesthetic that could contain many messages at once and self-replicate on a global scale. Jeff Conant offers an engaging and innovative tool for organizers and educators to understand how the Zapatistas' strategy works, and to continue developing and refining their effective messages of participatory, bottom-up revolution.Jeff Conant is a writer and activist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of A Community Guide to Environmental Health.

Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist


Patrick Albert Moore - 2010
    Patrick Moore's engaging firsthand account of his many years spent as the ultimate Greenpeace insider, a co-founder and leader in the organization's top committee. Moore explains why, 15 years after co-founding it, he left Greenpeace to establish a more sensible, science-based approach to environmentalism. From energy independence to climate change, genetic engineering to aquaculture, Moore sheds new light on some of the most controversial subjects in the news today.

Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for Success with Adult Learners


George Lakey - 2010
    The book will be invaluable to anyone trying to effect social change through groups while striving to stay simultaneously sane and employed."--Stephen D. Brookfield, Distinguished University Professor, University of St. Thomas"I've been working with forms of direct education for many decades, and I found new ideas and inspirations in every chapter. For anyone involved in teaching, training, sharing skills, or leading groups, this book is an invaluable resource!"--Starhawk, author, The Earth Path, Dreaming the Dark, and Webs of Power"George Lakey has inspired our union to engage in education in a way that challenges us to redefine social justice and equality in new and exciting ways. This book helps us to continue our journey to touch the souls of union members."--Denis Lemelin, national president, Canadian Union of Postal Workers"Facilitating Group Learning will ease the way of all who venture into the white waters of facilitation. George clarifies the most basic, complex, and nagging challenges of facilitation, while honoring the realities of individual and social power dynamics and providing real-life examples from the path of continued growth and mastery. A rare gift!"--Niyonu D. Spann, founding president, TRV Consulting and Beyond Diversity 101"This book is a must-read for people who teach adults of any age, no matter what the subject, and care about doing it in ways that yield deep and abiding learning. Wonderfully well-written and rich with psychological and spiritual insights as well as practical strategies, it represents the fruits of a lifetime of transformational teaching and learning by one of the foremost adult educators of our time."--Parker J. Palmer, author, The Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, and The Heart of Higher Education

None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture


Joshua E.S. Phillips - 2010
    For more than three years, reporter Joshua E. S. Phillips—with the support of Adam’s mother and several of his Army buddies—investigated Adam’s death. What Phillips uncovered was a story of American veterans psychologically scarred by the abuse they had meted out to Iraqi prisoners. How did US forces turn to torture? Phillips’s narrative recounts the journey of a tank battalion—trained for conventional combat—as its focus switches to guerrilla war and prisoner detention. It tells of how a group of ordinary soldiers, ill trained for the responsibilities foisted upon them, descended into the degradation of abuse. The location is far from CIA prisons and Guantanamo, but the story captures the widespread use and nature of torture in the US armed forces. Based on firsthand reporting from the Middle East, as well as interviews with soldiers, their families and friends, military officials, and the victims of torture, None of Us Were Like This Before reveals how soldiers, senior officials, and the US public came to believe that torture was both effective and necessary. The book illustrates that the damaging legacy of torture is not only borne by the detainees, but also by American soldiers and the country to which they’ve returned.

Revolutionary Women: A Book of Stencils


Queen of the Neighbourhood - 2010
    From Harriet Tubman, Emma Goldman, and Angela Davis to Vandana Shiva, Sylvia Rivera, and Lucy Parsons, this collection offers a subversive portrait celebrating the military prowess and revolutionary drive of these women whose violent resolve often shatters the archetype of woman as nurturer. A sampling of quotes from key writings and speeches gives voice to each woman’s ideologies, philosophies, struggles, and quiet humanity while the stencils offer further opportunities to commemorate these women and their actions through the reproduction of their likenesses.

Clean Water For Elirose


Ariah Fine - 2010
    Read about all the great ways these kids help make a difference and how you can too!All profits from book sales go to support clean water projects. Order online today at http://cleanwaterforelirose.com

Somebody's Daughter: The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them


Julian Sher - 2010
    Many people wrongly believe sex trafficking involves young women from foreign lands. In reality, the majority of teens caught in the sex trade are American girls--runaways and throwaways who become victims of ruthless pimps.            In Somebody's Daughter: The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them, meet the girls who are fighting for their dignity, the cops who are trying to rescue them, and the community activists battling to protect the nation's most forsaken children. Author Julian Sher takes you behind the scenes to expose one of America’s most underreported crimes: A girl from New Jersey gets arrested in Las Vegas and, at great risk to her own life, helps the FBI take down a million-dollar pimping empire. An abused teenager in Texas has the courage to take the stand in a grueling trial that sends her pimp away for 75 years. Survivors of the sex trade in New York, Phoenix, and Minneapolis set up shelters and rescue centers that offer young girls a chance to break free from the streets. “The sex trade is the new drug trade,” says one FBI special agent, and Somebody's Daughter is a call to action, shining a light on America’s dirty little secret.

Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California


Donna Murch - 2010
    Drawing on oral history and untapped archival sources, she explains how a relatively small city with a recent history of African American settlement produced such compelling and influential forms of Black Power politics. During an era of expansion and political struggle in California's system of public higher education, black southern migrants formed the BPP. In the early 1960s, attending Merritt College and other public universities radicalized Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and many of the young people who joined the Panthers' rank and file. In the face of social crisis and police violence, the most disfranchised sectors of the East Bay's African American community--young, poor, and migrant--challenged the legitimacy of state authorities and of an older generation of black leadership. By excavating this hidden history, Living for the City broadens the scholarship of the Black Power movement by documenting the contributions of black students and youth who created new forms of organization, grassroots mobilization, and political literacy.

Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country


Thom Hartmann - 2010
    The result has been economic and environmental disaster. In this hard-hitting new book, nationally syndicated radio and television host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann outlines eleven common-sense proposals, deeply rooted in America's history, that will once again make America strong and Americans--not corporations and billionaires--prosperous. Some of these ideas will be controversial to both the Left and the Right, but the litmus test for each is not political correctness but whether or not it serves to revitalize this country we all love and make life better for its citizens.

Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture


Jonathan D. Katz - 2010
    Arcing from the turn of the twentieth century, through the emergence of the modern gay liberation movement in 1969, the tragedies of the AIDS epidemic, and to the present, Hide/Seek openly considers what has long been suppressed or tacitly ignored, even by the most progressive sectors of our society: the influence of gay and lesbian artists in creating American modernism.Hide/Seek shows how questions of gender and sexual identity dramatically shaped the artistic practices of influential American artists such as Thomas Eakins, Romaine Brooks, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, and many more—in addition to artists of more recent works such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Glenn Ligon, Catherine Opie, and Cass Bird. The authors argue that despite the late-nineteenth-century definition and legal codification of the “homosexual,” in reality, questions of sexuality always remained fluid and continually redefined by artists concerned with the act of portrayal. In particular, gay and lesbian artists—of but not fully in the society they portrayed—occupied a position of influential marginality, from which vantage point they crafted innovative and revolutionary ways of painting portraits. Their resistance to society's attempt to proscribe them forced them to develop new visual vocabularies by which to code, disguise, and thereby express their subjects' identities—and also their own.Bringing together for the first time new scholarship in the history of American sexuality and new research in American portraiture, Hide/Seek charts the heretofore hidden impact of gay and lesbian artists on American art and portraiture and creates the basis for the necessary reassessment of the careers of major American artists—both gay and straight—as well as of portraiture itself.

Firebrands: Portraits of the Americas


Shaun Slifer - 2010
    These beautifully illustrated mini-poster pages showcase radicals, dissidents, folk singers, and rabble-rousers, from Emma Goldman to Tupac, Pablo Neruda to Fred Hampton. This is a real people's history, a book packed with dynamite, desire, and, above all, courage.

Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania's Forests


Anna Krien - 2010
    At stake is the future of old-growth forests. Loggers and police face off with protesters deep in the forest, while savage political games are played in the courts and parliaments. In Into the Woods, Anna Krien, armed with a notebook, a sleeping bag and a rusty sedan, ventures behind the battlelines to see what it is like to risk everything for a cause. She speaks to ferals and premiers, sawmillers and whistle-blowers. She investigates personalities and convictions, methods and motives. This is a book about a company that wanted its way and the resistance that eventually forced it to change. Into the Woods is intimate, intrepid reporting by a fearless new voice.

The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class


Bernie Sanders - 2010
    It turned out to be a very long speech, lasting over eight & a half hours. It hit a nerve. Millions followed the speech online until the traffic crashed the Senate server. A huge, positive grassroots response tied up the phones in the senator's offices in Vermont & Washington. Pres. Obama reportedly held an impromptu press conference with former Pres. Clinton to deflect media attention away from Sanders' speech. Editorials & news coverage appeared throughout the world. In his speech, Sanders blasted the agreement that President Obama struck with Republicans, which extended the Bush tax cuts for millionaires & billionaires, lowered estate tax rates for the very, very rich, & set a terrible precedent by establishing a "payroll tax holiday" diverting revenue away from the Social Security Trust Fund, threatening the fund's very future. But the speech was more than a critique of a particular piece of legislation. It was a dissection of the collapse of the American middle class & a well-researched attack on corporate greed & on public policy which, over the last several decades, has led to a huge growth in millionaires even as the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. It was a plea for a fundamental change in national priorities, for government policy that reflects the needs of working families, not just the wealthy & their lobbyists. Finally, Sanders' speech--published here in its entirety with a new introduction by the senator--is a call for action. It's a passionate statement informing us that the only people who will save the middle class of this country is the middle class itself, but only if it's informed, organized & prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests dominating Washington. Sen. Sanders is the longest-serving Independent in the history of the US Congress. He's represented Vermont in the Senate for four years & in the House for sixteen years. He served four terms as Mayor of Burlington, VT, during which time the city was recognized as one of the most livable cities in America.

Resistance Against Empire


Derrick Jensen - 2010
    domestic and foreign policy, this collection of interviews gathers incendiary insights from 10 of today’s most experienced and knowledgeable activists. Whether it’s Ramsey Clark describing the long history of military invasion, Alfred McCoy detailing the relationship between CIA activities and the increase in the global heroin trade, Stephen Schwartz reporting the obscene costs of nuclear armaments, or Katharine Albrecht tracing the horrors of the modern surveillance state, this investigation of global governance is sure to inform, engage, and incite readers.

Beating the Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action


Sean Birchall - 2010
    Race attacks escalated. NF/BNP gangs employed violence on the streets, on the terraces and to control the music scene. Young anti-fascists stepped up.A new hardline leadership emerged and AFA was formed in 1985. “A state of war” was how one rueful BNP leader would describe what happened next.Not only is Beating the Fascists a meticulously researched study, it is also a much-needed piece of history from below. Throughout, the voices of working class anti-fascists come across hard, clear, and without apology.Illuminating and sometimes chilling by turn, the running commentary they provide helps ensure the tempo never flags. Gradually the reader is drawn into an outlaw world of back street idealism, paramilitary style violence and heroic self-sacrifice.

Do Something!: A Handbook for Young Activists


Nancy Lublin - 2010
    Parents want their kids to do it. Schools often require kids to do it. So do it: Do something and change the world.  And here’s how, in a fist-in-the-air book for every young activist.DoSomething.org knows exactly how to reach kids. The largest Internet-based teen service organization, it supports 750,000 projects, receiving 15 million visitors a month, and, for the first time ever, broadcasting a Do Something Awards show on VH1. Do Something! takes aim at the next generation of do-gooders. Written in a lively, in-your-face style, designed to be edgy and hip, it’s the kind of interactive, educational book every parent will feel good about giving because it shows kids how to get involved, in language they understand. It’s an idea-to-execution guide. Quizzes help readers pinpoint their “thing”—a cause that fires them up. Then come the tools that show how to get something done, whether it’s making a poster, raising money, sending around a petition, or enlisting friends. There are 33 action plans, touching on areas such as the environment, human rights, poverty, animal welfare, education, disaster relief—plus worksheets, facts, and outlines to help socially conscious kids create their own projects, and, for inspiration, profiles of DoSomething.org grant winners. Additionally, DoSomething.org is setting up a separate website for this book’s readers.About DoSomething.org: DoSomething.org is one of the largest organizations in the US that helps young people rock causes they care about. A driving force in creating a culture of volunteerism, DoSomething.org is on track to activate two million young people in 2011. By leveraging the web, television, mobile, and pop culture, DoSomething.org inspires, empowers and celebrates a generation of doers:  teenagers who recognize the need to do something, believe in their ability to get it done, and then take action.  Plug in at www.DoSomething.org.

The FBI, Cointelpro, and Martin Luther King, JR.: Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence A


Church Committee - 2010
    Hoover considered the civil rights movement to be "Communist," and did everything in his power to destroy it.

For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights


Maurice Berger - 2010
    Asked why she would do this, she explained that by witnessing with their own eyes the brutality of segregation and racism, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of racial justice. “Let the world see what I’ve seen,” was her reply. The publication of the photograph inspired a generation of activists to join the civil rights movement.Despite this extraordinary episode, the story of visual culture’s role in the modern civil rights movement is rarely included in its history. This is the first comprehensive examination of the ways images mattered in the struggle, and it investigates a broad range of media including photography, television, film, magazines, newspapers, and advertising.These images were ever present and diverse: the startling footage of southern white aggression and black suffering that appeared night after night on television news programs; the photographs of black achievers and martyrs in Negro periodicals; the humble snapshot, no less powerful in its ability to edify and motivate. In each case, the war against racism was waged through pictures—millions of points of light, millions of potent weapons that forever changed a nation. Through vivid storytelling and incisive analysis, this powerful book allows us to see and understand the crucial role that visual culture played in forever changing a nation.

A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany


Maria Höhn - 2010
    Thanks in large part to its military occupation of Germany after World War II, America’s unresolved civil rights agenda was exposed to worldwide scrutiny as never before. At the same time, its ambitious efforts to democratize German society after the defeat of Nazism meant that West Germany was exposed to American ideas of freedom and democracy to a much larger degree than many other countries. As African American GIs became increasingly politicized, they took on a particular significance for the Civil Rights Movement in light of Germany’s central role in the Cold War. While the effects of the Civil Rights Movement reverberated across the globe, Germany represents a special case that illuminates a remarkable period in American and world history. Digital archive including videos, photographs, and oral history interviews available at www.breathoffreedom.org

Living In Liberation: Boundary Setting, Self-Care and Social Change


Cristien Storm - 2010
    As a co- founder and former Executive Director of Seattle-based Home Alive, Cristien Storm developed self-defense programs that recognize the link between the concepts of self-defense and social change. Her new book outlines this innovative and radical approach to self-defense that challenges those practicing boundary setting and self-care to see themselves not simply as individuals but also as local, national, and global community members. Storm s first book Living in Liberation argues that responses to violence can and should embody boundary setting, self-care, and self-defense skills that interrupt victim-blaming, fear-based approaches and locate healing within the social context of community. This groundbreaking text roots boundary setting and self-care in larger visions of happier and healthier communities, all the while holding on to the complexities of individual safety and social justice.

Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle


Nick Riotfag - 2010
    

The Origins of Responsibility


François Raffoul - 2010
    Exploring responsibility in the works of Nietzsche, Sartre, Levinas, Heidegger, and Derrida, Raffoul identifies decisive moments in the development of the concept, retrieves its origins, and explores new reflections on it. For Raffoul, responsibility is less about a sovereign subject establishing a sphere of power and control than about exposure to an event that does not come from us and yet calls to us. These original and thoughtful investigations of the post-metaphysical senses of responsibility chart new directions for ethics in the continental tradition.

The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism


Dan BergerScott Rutherford - 2010
    The Hidden 1970s explores the distinctiveness of those years, a time when radicals tried to change the world as the world changed around them.This powerful collection is a compelling assessment of left-wing social movements in a period many have described as dominated by conservatism or confusion. Scholars examine critical and largely buried legacies of the 1970s. The decade of Nixon's fall and Reagan's rise also saw widespread indigenous militancy, prisoner uprisings, transnational campaigns for self-determination, pacifism, and queer theories of play as political action. Contributors focus on diverse topics, including the internationalization of Black Power and Native sovereignty, organizing for Puerto Rican independence among Latinos and whites, and women's self-defense. Essays and ideas trace the roots of struggles from the 1960s through the 1970s, providing fascinating insight into the myriad ways that radical social movements shaped American political culture in the 1970s and the many ways they continue to do so today.

Sustainable World Sourcebook: Critical Issues, Inspiring Solutions, Resources for Action


Sustainable World Coalition - 2010
    The Sustainable World Sourcebook, Fourth Edition, is designed to support readers in finding pathways for effective individual and group action. It cuts through the glut of information, providing a clear, concise overview of the most important issues and aspects of sustainability that everyone needs to know. And it's packed with successful models, inspiring examples and actionable solutions. This richly illustrated, beautifully designed, full-color manual addresses: • Environmental issues and their impacts, along with a prescription for rapid, large-scale change • Energy resources, peak oil, conservation, and emerging technologies • The global financial crisis, economic transition, green jobs, and sustainable business • Poverty, health, education, food security, and social justice • Local, sustainable communities and engaged citizens and• Green lifestyle choices Featuring a foreword written by renowned environmentalist and best-selling author Paul Hawken, the Sustainable World Sourcebook will appeal to anyone seeking an understanding of a broad range of sustainability issues. Focused on solutions and actions, it is the essential guidebook for every concerned citizen. The Sustainable World Coalition, the producers of this book, provide educational materials and courses that foster strong engagement in personal and planetary sustainability. The Coalition is a project of Earth Island Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental sustainability and social justice.

Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power


Paul Street - 2010
    While mainstream journalists have noted discrepancies between Obama's original vision and reality, Paul Street uniquely measures Obama's record against the expectations of the truly progressive agenda many of his supporters expected him to follow. Taken together, the list of Obama's weakened policies is startling: his business-friendly measures with the economy, the lack of support for the growing mass of unemployed and poor, the dilution of his health reform agenda, the passage of a record-setting Pentagon budget, and escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Street's account reveals these and many other indications of how deeply beholden Obama is to existing dominant domestic and global hierarchies and doctrines.

Radical Mycology: An SLF Primer


Spore Liberation Front - 2010
    A guide to the life cycle and identification of mushrooms and the preparation of products and medicinals from them; illustrated throughout.

There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America


Philip Dray - 2010
     From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first real factories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the con­test between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Philip Dray’s ambition is to show us the vital accomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution. There Is Power in a Union is an epic, character-driven narrative that locates this struggle for security and dignity in all its various settings: on picket lines and in union halls, jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the halls of Congress, and the White House. The author demonstrates, viscerally and dramatically, the urgency of the fight for fairness and economic democracy—a struggle that remains especially urgent today, when ordinary Americans are so anxious and beset by eco­nomic woes.

Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women's Theology


Kwok Pui-Lan - 2010
    The book has been widely used as an important resource for understanding women's liberation theologies, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America emerging out of women's struggles for justice in church and society. More than twenty years have passed and it is time to bring out a new collection of essays to signal newer developments and to include emerging voices. Divided into four partsContext and Theology; Scripture; Christology; and Body, Sexuality, and Spiritualitythese carefully selected essays paint a vivid picture of theological developments among indigenous women and other women living in the global South who face poverty, violence, and war and yet find abundant hope through their faith.

Say It Loud: Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity


Catherine Ellis - 2010
    With recordings unearthed from libraries and sound archives, and made widely available here for the first time, Say It Loud includes powerful speeches by Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr., James Cone, Toni Morrison, Colin Powell, and many others.Bringing the rich immediacy of the spoken word to a vital historical and intellectual tradition, Say It Loud illuminates the diversity of ideas and arguments pulsing through the black freedom movement.

Play, Creativity, and Social Movements: If I Can't Dance, It's Not My Revolution


Benjamin Heim Shepard - 2010
    Today, a new cohort of social activists are using it to create social change and reinvent democratic social relations. In contrast to work or routine, play must be free. To the extent that it is, it infuses a high-octane burst of innovation into any number of organizational practices and contexts, and invites social actors to participate in a low-threshold, highly democratic process of collaboration, based on pleasure and convivial social relations. Despite the contention that such activities are counterproductive, movements continue to put the right to party on the table as a part of a larger process of social change, as humor and pleasure disrupt monotony, while disarming systems of power. Through this book, Shepard explores notions of play as a social movement activity, considering some of the meanings, applications and history of the concept in relation to social movement groups ranging from Dada and Surrealism to Situationism, the Yippies to the Young Lords, ACT UP to the Global Justice, anti-gentrification, community and anti-war movements of recent years.

Facilitating Intergroup Dialogues: Bridging Differences, Catalyzing Change


Kelly E. Maxwell - 2010
    As today's elected leaders and media shout past one another, our next generation needs to learn how to talk and work together across our political and social differences to address critical global concerns. This scholarly book provides the research and necessary practical, hands-on experience of how to facilitate constructive intergroup dialogues with students from different backgrounds.--David Schoem, Director, Michigan Community Scholars Program, University of Michigan"This volume is a panoramic yet intimate examination of the value of intergroup dialogues and the training of the facilitators in many settings. It incorporates the best research and theory with anecdotal and eloquent accounts from participants, both faculty members and students. From survey research and personal experience, the authors explore the habits of mind and interpersonal skills needed to facilitate intergroup dialogue successfully in the cause of both education and justice. A must-read.--Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Syracuse UniversityThis volume, the first dedicated entirely to intergroup dialogue facilitation, draws on the experiences of contributors and on emerging research to address the multi-dimensional role of facilitators and co-facilitators, the training and support of facilitators, and ways of improving practice in both educational and community settings. It constitutes a comprehensive guide for practitioners, covering the theoretical, conceptual, and practical knowledge they need. Presenting the work and insights of scholars, practitioners and scholar-practitioners who train facilitators for intergroup dialogues, this book bridges the theoretical and conceptual foundations of intergroup relations and social justice education with training models for intergroup dialogue facilitation.

War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women and the Consequences of Conflict


Ann Jones - 2010
    Answers came through the point and click of a digital camera. On behalf of the IRC, Ann Jones spent two years traveling through Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East, giving cameras to women who had no other means of telling the world what war had done to their lives. The photography project—which moved from Liberia to Syria and points in between—quickly broadened to encompass the full consequences of modern warfare for the most vulnerable. Even after the definitive moments of military victory, women and children remain blighted by injury and displacement and are the most affected by the destruction of communities and social institutions. And along with peace often comes worsening violence against women, both domestic and sexual.Dramatic and compelling, animated by the voices of brave and resourceful women, War Is Not Over When It's Over shines a powerful light on a phenomenon that has long been cast in shadow.

Writing on the Edge: Great Contemporary Writers on the Front Line of Crisis


Tom Craig - 2010
    An important book for anyone interested in global issues, Writing on the Edge features twelve essays that take the reader to countries in crisis. Award-winning writer Martin Amis experienced firsthand the problems of gang violence in Colombia, South America; New York Times bestselling author Tracy Chevalier focuses on the abuse of women in Burundi, East Africa; Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis writes of meeting children raised in war-torn Palestine; Booker Prize–winning author DBC Pierre addresses the unusually high incidence of mental health issues in Armenia. Award-winning photographer Tom Craig was commissioned by the humanitarian charity Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders to document the writers in these places in trouble. His striking photographs amplify the sense of compassion required while also demonstrating that beautiful humanity is the victim of tragedy.

Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us about Spreading Social Change


Nick Cooney - 2010
    Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change brings this information to light so that non-profits, community organizers and others can make science-driven decisions in their advocacy work. The book examines more than eighty years of empirical research in areas including social psychology, communication studies, diffusion studies, network systems and social marketing, distilling the highlights into easy-to-use advice and serving as a psychology primer for anyone wanting to spread progressive social change.

Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment: Autobiographical Reflections, Essays, and Poems


Carole Boyce Davies - 2010
    I spent my formative political years in Claudia Jones's London stamping ground of Notting Hill -- it was the classic centre of post-war black activism in Britain. Most West Indian immigrants in the 1950s came by boat to Southampton and the train from there took them into Paddington. Hence the large black community in that part of West London. So I know people who had worked with Claudia Jones and spoke of her with awe. She founded two of Black Britain's most important institutions; the first black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette, and she was also one of the founding organizers of the Notting Hill Carnival.Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment transcends the silencing and erasure historically accorded women of achievement: it makes accessible and brings to wider attention the words of an often overlooked twentieth-century political and cultural activist, who tirelessly campaigned, wrote, spoke out, organized, edited and published autobiographical writings, poetry, essays on subjects close to her political heart -- human rights, peace, struggles related to gender, race and class -- this is a collection that unites the many facets of a woman whose identities as a radical thinker and as a black woman are not in conflict. --Book Jacket (from WorldCat)