This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century - Softcover

Engler, Mark; Engler, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568585705 ISBN 13: 9781568585703

Publisher: Bold Type Books, 2017

Synopsis

"Absorbing... Ambitious... Indispensable. A genuine gift to social movements everywhere." -Naomi Klein

From protests around climate change and immigrant rights, to Occupy, the Arab Spring, and #BlackLivesMatter, a new generation is unleashing strategic nonviolent action to shape public debate and force political change. When mass movements erupt onto our television screens, the media consistently portrays them as being spontaneous and unpredictable. Yet, in this book, Mark and Paul Engler look at the hidden art behind such outbursts of protest, examining core principles that have been used to spark and guide moments of transformative unrest.

With incisive insights from contemporary activists, as well as fresh revelations about the work of groundbreaking figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Gene Sharp, and Frances Fox Piven, the Englers show how people with few resources and little conventional influence are engineering the upheavals that are reshaping contemporary politics.

Nonviolence is usually seen simply as a philosophy or moral code. This Is an Uprising shows how it can instead be deployed as a method of political conflict, disruption, and escalation. It argues that if we are always taken by surprise by dramatic outbreaks of revolt, we pass up the chance to truly understand how social transformation happens.

About this title

Review

"[An] important analysis of nonviolent strategy."--Tina Rosenberg, New York Times


"Thorough and authoritative...Both as a primer on the theory of nonviolent protest and as a practical guide to positive action, [This Is An Uprising] is an invaluable resource."--Peter Whittaker, New Internationalist

"A terrific survey of direct action strategies, bringing out many of the strengths and weaknesses of activist efforts to effect major change in the United States and around the world since well before the twenty-first century. It should be taught in every level of our schools."--David Swanson, Let's Try Democracy

"Engler and Engler have distilled decades of complex and often discordant theories into an accessible guide to effective lasting civil resistance and organization building. This is a book that is likely to be read and reread for years to come."--Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

"Compellingly readable and quite timely...[The authors] deftly argue that organizers can define the terms of their own victory."--Matt Wasserman, The Indypendent

"I picked up [This Is An Uprising], and within minutes I was engrossed... [The Englers] argue, persuasively, that... uprisings that use nonviolent confrontation have changed the world. And they have done it with such passion, intensity, and page-turning storytelling, that I had barely been able to put the book down."--Ellen Michaud, QuakerBooks

"Anyone who doubts that community organizing is a significant part of the social fabric will find such assumptions dispelled by this intriguing and illuminating overview."--Booklist

"I've rarely seen movements described so intimately at their strategic turning points, supported with the comparative insights of scholars in the field. Reading the gripping stories alone makes the book worthwhile."--George Lakey, Waging Nonviolence

"Especially timely in the wake of protests across the United States, this book offers insight into how far we've come as a country and how much further we have to go."--Library Journal


"A usefully organized, concise history of social movements that will appeal to newer generations of activists."--Kirkus Reviews

Book Description

This powerful look at peaceful protest demystifies nonviolence as an important political tool, explores its historical roots, and reveals the careful planning behind these seemingly spontaneous movements

Edition details

• Publisher: Bold Type Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1568585705
• ISBN 13: 9781568585703
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384