It’s the (Next) Economy, Stupid
Books reviewed:
Foster, Natalie. The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America’s Next Economy. New Press, 2024.
Cohen, Donald, and Allen Mikaelian. The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back. New Press, 2023.
What If We Can Change Everything?
Books reviewed:
cȧrdenas, micha. Atoms Never Touch. AK Press, 2023.
Collins, Chuck. Altar to an Erupting Sun. Green Writers Press, 2023.
Fletcher, Bill, Jr. The Man Who Fell From the Sky. Hardball Press, 2018.
Fletcher, Bill, Jr. The Man Who Changed Colors. Hardball Press, 2023.
Imarisha, Walidah, and adrienne maree brown. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. AK Press, 2015.
Ritchie, Andrea, J. Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies. AK Press, 2023.
Sun, Kung Li. Begin the World Over. AK Press, 2022.
Quick Take: The Universals
Books reviewed:
Goehl, George. Fundamentals of Community Organizing. Self-published, 2024.
Marchiel, Rebecca K. After Redlining: The Urban Reinvestment Movement in the Era of Financial Regulation. University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Answering the Call: Strategy and Power-Building From the Bottom Up
Books Reviewed:
Bhargava, D., Luce, S. Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World. New Press, 2023.
Lewis, Lynn. Women Who Change the World: Stories from the Fight for Social Justice. City Lights, 2023.
Petitjean, Clément. Occupation: Organizer: A Critical History of Community Organizing in America. Haymarket Books, 2023.
Forging Revolutionary Tools
Book reviewed:
Redford, Katie and Mark Gevisser. The Revolution Will Not Be Litigated: People Power and Legal Power in the 21st Century. OR, 2023.
More Than the Sum of Our Parts
Book Reviewed:
Grossinger, Ken. Art Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together. New Press: 2023.
What Else Is There To Do But Organize?
Books reviewed:
Cassedy, Ellen. Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie. Chicago Review Press, 2022.
Mondros, Jacqueline B. and Joan Minieri. Organizing for Power and Empowerment: The Fight for Democracy. 2nd edition. Columbia University Press, 2023.
Shiller, Helen. Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’s Uptown Community. Haymarket Books, 2022.
Hiding in Plain Sight: The Key to Transforming the Democratic Party and America
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Giridharadas, Anand. The Persuaders: At the Frontlines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy. Knopf, 2022.
Kleeb, Jane. Harvest the Vote: How Democrats Can Win Again in Rural America. Harper Collins, 2020.
Maxmin, Chloe and Canyon Woodward. Dirt Road Revival: How To Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends On It. Beacon Press, 2022.
If You Can't Change the People, Then Change the People
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Kazin, Michael. What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.
You Are Being Called to Greatness in the Face of the Apocalypse
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Smiley, Erica, and Sarita Gupta. The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. Cornell University Press, 2022.
Burnham, Linda, Max Elbaum and Maria Poblet. Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections. A project of Convergence: A Magazine of Radical Insights. O/R Books, 2022.
If You’re Not Building Power, You’re Just Admiring the Problem
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Malm, Andreas and the Zetkin Collective. White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism. Verso, 2021.
Malm, Andreas. How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire. Verso, 2021.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Ministry for the Future. Orbit, 2020.
How Long Must My Journey Go? Or, an organizer-bodhisaatva's guide to enlightenment
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Han, Hahrie, McKenna, and Oyakawa. Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First Century America. University of Chicago Press, 2021.
Mott, Andrew. Preparing to Win: Developing Community Leaders, Organizers and Allies. New Community Press, 2020.
Are You Committed to Fighting or Winning? Because there is a difference and it matters
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Subar, Rebecca. When to Talk and When to Fight: The Strategic Choice Between Dialogue and Resistance. PM Press, 2021.
Hayhoe, Katharine. Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Altria/One Signal Publishers, 2021.
Finding Your Path to Power
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Garza, Alicia. The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart. One World, 2020.
Fonda, Jane. What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action. Penguin Press, 2020.
We Have Found the Enemy (TLDR; It's Not Us)
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Perlstein, Rick. Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980. Simon and Schuster, 2020.
Teachout, Zephyr. Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2020.
McGhee, Heather. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World, 2021
How Cheap Things Expose the Root Causes of Our Biggest Problems
BOOK REVIEWED:
Patel, Raj, and Jason W. Moore. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. University of California Press, 2017.
Racial Justice Is The Key To Worker Power And Building Back Better
BOOKS REVIEWED:
McAlevey, Jane. A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy. Ecco Press, 2020.
Greenhouse, Steven. Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor. Random House, 2019.
The Path Forward From Pandemic To A Green New World
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Engh, Susan. Women’s Work: The Transformational Power of Faith-Based Community Organizing. Lanham: Lexington Books-Fortress Academic, 2019.
Brescia, Ray. The Future of Change: Technology, Social Movements, and Social Change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020. Print.
You Say You Want A Revolution
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Engler, M., & Engler, P. This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. New York: Bold Type Books, 2016.
brown, adrienne m. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Abridged 1976 ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011
Shutting Things Down To Open Things Up
BOOK REVIEWED:
Fithian, Lisa. Shut It Down: Stories From A Fierce, Loving Resistance. Vermont, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019.