FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power
Howard Zinn’s collected speeches
Jane Adams: A new biography
Ten ways the occupy movement changes everything
The establishment that no longer is
Living in a dysfunctional family called America
Change the culture; the politics will follow
America has to learn how to manage its decline
Confronting post-political disorder
How communities can take on government and corporations
A biography of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers
Learning from the Sixties: Memoir of an Organizer
This Changes Everything: The meaning and importance of the occupy movement
The Man Who Never Died: A bio of labor organizer Joe Hill including evidence that he was framed
Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite. . . Through his brilliant analysis, psychologist Bruce Levine explains the process by which mainstream America has become demoralized and docile, how those in power maintain that power, and what it will take to turn things around.”–Jim Gottstein, President/CEO Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity, and Ingenuity Can Change the World by Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture by Paul Krassner . Krassner, a long-time contributor to the now deceased print edition of the Progressive Review, is out with an expanded edition of his memoirs. . . .
ON GANDHI’S PATH: BOB SWANN’S WORK FOR PEACE AND COMMUNITY ECONOMICS by Stephanie Mills. Robert Swann was a self-taught economist, a tireless champion of decentralism, and the father of the relocalization movement. A conscientious war resistor imprisoned for his beliefs, Bob Swann engaged in lifelong nonviolent direct action against war, racism, and economic inequity. His legacy is a vision of a life-affirming, alternative economy of peace founded on innovations in land and monetary reform.
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India. How Gandhi became Gandhi
HOW INTERNET RADIO CAN CHANGE THE WORLD: AN ACTIVIST’S HANDBOOK
BUILDING POWERFUL COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS: A Personal Guide to Creating Groups That Can Solve Problems and Change the World, by Michael Jacoby Brown, Long Haul Press, $19.95.
CALLING ALL RADICALS: How Grassroots Organizers Can Save Our Democracy, by Gabriel Thompson, Nation Books, $14.95.
TOOLS FOR RADICAL DEMOCRACY: How to Organize for Power in Your Community, by Joan Minieri and Paul Getsos, Chardon Press, $29.95.
Taking Back our Neighborhoods: Building communities that work, Mary Wachter, Cynthia Tinsley. A step-by-step plan for creating a more pleasant, less violent neighborhood.
The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits, John McKnight. Considers how the efforts of “experts” may in fact be destroying neighborhoods; celebrates the ability of neighborhoods to heal from within. Focuses on four “counterfeiting” aspects of society: professionalism, medicine, human service systems, and the criminal justice system. Has reflections on Christian service and its transformation into carelessness.
Going Local: Creating self-reliant communities in a global age, Michael Shuman. Many communities are handing out corporate welfare to encourage businesses to relocate to their areas. Presents positive alternatives: (1) invest in locally-owned businesses like credit unions, cooperatives, community land trusts, municipally owned utilities, small worker-owned firms, community development corporations, local share-holder owned firms; (2) focus on import-replacing rather than export-led, i.e. reduce dependence on distant sources of energy, water, food, and basic materials; (3) eliminate many subsidies and change tax and trade laws. A challenge to conservative and liberals alike. I have ordered this one myself.
From Mondragon to America: Experiments in Community Economic Development, Gregory MacLeod. The Mondragon cooperatives of the Basque region of Spain grow out of the teaching of the social justice doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1950s, five people joined together in a cooperative to make paraffin stoves in a garage. Today, the Mondragon cooperatives have more than 30,000 owner-employees in over 100 different enterprises, doing everything from manufacturing machine tools to distributing groceries.
Organizing the South Bronx. Jim Rooney, Nathan Glazer. A study of the process by which the residents of an impoverished urban neighborhood were educated and organized to fight the city government for vacant land and build low-cost, owner-occupied housing. Such organizing, mainly working through traditional churches, is rapidly growing in the US and has close relatives in Latin America. Pricey, but very interesting.
Organizing for Social Change: A manual for activists in the 1990s, Kim Bobo, et al. A comprehensive manual for grassroots organizers working for social, political, environmental, and economic change at the local, state, and national level.
The Activist’s Handbook: A primer for the 1990s and beyond, Randy Shaw. A true handbook, has detailed examples of action in a wide variety of areas – crime prevention, affordable housing, ecology, and etc. Analyzes campaigns that succeeded and some that failed.
Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing, Linda Stout, Howard Zinn. Uses an organizing model with seven principles: focus on social change, work across lines of race and class, diversity of outreach and training, linking local and national issues, developing personal empowerment and organizational power, flexibility to meet changing circumstances. Intriguing.
Building Communities from the Inside Out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets, John Kretzmann and John McKnight. Studies successful community-building initiatives in hundreds of US neighborhoods.
Let the People Decide: Neighborhood organizing in America (Social Movements Past and Present), Robert Fisher. Updated and revised, studies the period 1886 to the 1980s
Fight Back: How you and your neighbors can take action to improve your community, Dennis King. An investigative reporter takes would-be community activists through the basic steps.
Rules for Radicals: A practical primer for realistic radicals, by Saul Alinsky.
The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits, John McKnight. Considers how the efforts of “experts” may in fact be destroying neighborhoods; celebrates the ability of neighborhoods to heal from within. Focuses on four “counterfeiting” aspects of society: professionalism, medicine, human service systems, and the criminal justice system. Has reflections on Christian service and its transformation into carelessness.
The Progressive Review 