The genealogy of today's disruptive protest movements
L.A. Kauffman has spent more than 30 years immersed in radical movements, as an organizer, strategist, journalist, and observer. Her writings on grassroots activism and social movement history have been published in The Nation, Mother Jones, n+1, The Baffler, and many other outlets. Kauffman was the mobilizing coordinator for the massive anti-war marches of 2003-2004; she has been called a "virtuoso organizer" by journalist Scott Sherman for her role in saving community gardens and public libraries in New York City from developers.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of this book. Chances
are that even if you know something about the recent history of the
left in America, you probably only know a few isolated parts. L.A.
Kauffman has connected a vast field of dots to create an overview,
and she has done so with dispatch, clarity, and elegance. Her book
is essential reading for today, and will be for tomorrow.
*Luc Sante, author of The Other Paris*
As the new political reality settles in, resisters are asking a
follow-up question: What else can I do? L.A. Kauffman's new book
Direct Action provides some answers.
*Vogue*
L.A. Kauffman may have the best-timed book release in years.
*The Atlantic*
L.A. Kauffman's Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of
American Radicalism is the best overview of how protest works -
when it does - and what it's achieved over the past 50 years.
*New York Times*
A movement tour de force. A must-read for those who have committed
themselves to the life of the mind and of struggle.
*Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, theologian and organizer*
You could not ask for a better guide through recent social movement
history than L.A. Kauffman. A champion of radical causes with
decades of experience on the front lines of civil disobedience, she
chronicles the fascinating evolution of a set of protest tactics
today's activists take for granted. Kauffman has done a tremendous
public service: by helping us better understand the past, in all
its glory and folly, we can be more effective dissidents and
rabble-rousers tomorrow. This startling, inspiring book is for
anyone who has ever felt the urge to put their body on the line and
shut things down for something they believe in.
*Astra Taylor, author of The People’s Platform and
co-founder of the Debt Collective*
The lurid circus sideshow has seized center ring in Washington,
making direct action by progressive agitators all across the
country more essential than ever. Don't agonize, organize! How to
do it? Kauffman's powerful book, drawing on our people's recent
history, shows the way to create true justice for all.
*Jim Hightower, author and activist*
If direct action is 'a laboratory for political experimentation and
innovation,' as Kauffman argues in the introduction, then this is
the lab report.
*Vice*
Kauffman, an important and experienced organizer, senses in Occupy,
Black Lives Matter and perhaps even the Bernie Sanders campaign new
political oxygen, locally-based movements that cannot be
effectively controlled or easily squashed.
*Socialism and Democracy*
In Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American
Radicalism, L. A. Kauffman assesses movements of the past half
century not as scattered uprisings but as phases of an overarching
project ... Our current radical-action culture, she thinks, really
started in the early seventies, when a new generation of green
shoots rose up from the ash.
*New Yorker*
In a genuinely invigorating book for these times, L. A. Kauffman
positively reassesses the efficacy of leftist protest movements
since the '60s, beginning with a re-examination of the '60s itself.
This book is a must-read for anyone looking for a way forward.
*Longreads*
This intricate book deserves careful reading. Far from being just a
catalogue of actions, it traces the ways in which radical
movements, linked by their use of civil disobedience, have adapted
to contemporary demands.
*Peace News*
L.A. Kauffman's valuable book, Direct Action, is both a thematic
history of a period and a dramatic exploration of the chaning
repertoire of protest tactics used by the American movements of the
radical left. Beginning with the May 3, 1971 "Mayday" anto-Viet-Nam
War demonstration in Washington, DC, the book concludes with Black
Lives Matter and the use of direct action in the 2014 resistance to
racist police practices in Ferguson, Missouri. Consideration of
times and techniques is integrated into four roughly chronological
chapters which answer the book's essential question: "What happened
to the American left after the sixties?"
*Socialism and Democracy*
At a time when socialism has reentered the political vocabulary, it
is wonderful to have this engaging book, introducing old-timers and
a new generation to the greatest American socialist, Eugene V.
Debs. A beloved labor leader, tireless battler against economic
inequality, and defender of free speech, Debs's radicalism and
commitment to social justice are more needed today than at any time
since his death.
*Eric Foner*
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