Product Description

We live in an era of a new radicalism, a worldwide challenge to global empire that has inspired millions to flood the streets in resistance and to take action in their own communities. This movement of movements is gaining momentum, even in the face of post-9.11 repression and war. All over the world, people are rebelling against the rule of the few who are intent on concentrating profit and power.

Globalize Liberation weaves together the experiences and insights of community organizers, direct action movements, and global justice struggles from North America, Europe, and Latin America. Thirty-three essays provide food for thought, examples of effective action, and practical tools for everyone to use. This book, the product of uprisings, hard-lived victories, and visions for the future, was created to articulate, popularize, and deepen the rebellious spirit of the new radicalism.

Contributors include: Walden Bello, Van Jones, Naomi Klein, George Lakey, Elizabeth (Betita) Martínez, Midnight Notes Collective, Patrick Reinsborough, Starhawk, and many more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #412095 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Review
"...document[s] the social movements of the last ten years and provid[es] suggestions and commentary about their future." -- Hopedance

"...insights and accounts from writers and activists across the globe..." -- NoHo LA

"If there were a required 101 class in anti-capitalism, this book would be central to the reading list." -- Fifth Estate

About the Author
David Solnit was a key organizer of the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle. A twenty-year veteran of global justice, anti-war, environmental justice, and community struggles, he has worked to popularize the use of direct democracy to build mass movements in the United States and globally. He is a founder of Art and Revolution, which has helped popularize the use of art, street theater and giant puppets as an innovative form of resistance in numerous movements across North America, and from Israel and Palestine to Argentina. He is a trainer in grassroots organizing, direct-action strategy, and street theater. He lives and works as a carpenter in Oakland, California.

Customer Reviews

An anthology of thirty-three essays by an immense variety
Enhanced for the reader with more than 180 black-and-white illustrations, Globalize Liberation: How To Uproot The System And Build A Better World is an anthology of thirty-three essays by an immense variety of community organizers, edited by social activist David Solnit. The common theme of all the topics is how to contribute what one can to making the world a better place, especially in the postmodern era. From identifying global problems of class struggle, racism, discrimination, and extreme concentration of power, to putting ideas in action whether in America, Argentenia, Scotland, or other nations around the world, Globalize Liberation offers a crucial glimpse into what is needed to shape the future of humanity for the better.

Be the change you want to see!
GLOBALIZE LIBERATION is a fine compendium of writings by and for global justice activists, or just activists generally. With 488 pages and 33 chapters, full of great black & white photos and drawings, it is a veritable encyclopedia. The book is divided into 3 sections:

1) What's the problem? (political analysis)

2) How to change things (tactics and strategies for change), and

3) Ideas in action (examples of various movements).

The editor, David Solnit, is a Bay Area activist with long years of experience, going back to the Bay Area Peace Test of the late 1980s. He was a key organizer of the successful nonviolent shutdown of the WTO (World Trade Organization) meeting in Seattle in November/December, 1999. Solnit works as a carpenter in Oakland, enough to keep him on the frontlines of a constant stream of NVA (nonviolent direct action) campaigns. In his editor's note, he says:

"As a carpenter, I have packed this book like a toolbelt, with the most useful and practical tools: ideas and understandings of how to uproot the system causing our problems and build a better world... ...This book is a resource, but does not offer a repeatable blueprint, roadmap or recipe for the changes our planet so desperately needs."

Of course if it did offer The Answer, you can bet that it would be VERY hard to find, and that everyone who desires progressive change would be circulating bootleg copies! But GLOBALIZE LIBERATION offers plenty of insight into making radical change from people who've been trying to make it. Most of the authors are unsung grassroots activists, but there are contributions from Walden Bello, Starhawk, Naomi Klein, George Lakey, and Elizabeth Martinez, all of whom are widely published and well-known in progressive circles. (No Rage Against the Machine, though, Amazon description to the contrary!)

The book makes no claim to represent the entire global justice movement -- certainly there are no contributions from conservative opponents of globalization such as Pat Buchanan. But neither are there contributions from the AFL-CIO, or such leading organizations as Public Citizen, the Institute for Policy Studies, or any of the Big 10 environmental groups. Solnit and his contributors basically fall into two categories -- anarchist/antiauthoritarians, and grassroots/populist organizers. The word anarchism, oddly enough, is not used overly much by the contributors -- but the basic approach is clear enough from the Introduction. Solnit says "[t]he new radicalism is a movement of movements, a network of networks, not merely intent on changing the world, but -- as the Zapatistas describe -- making a new one in which many worlds will fit." He goes on to distinguish this radicalism from the hierarchical/authoritarian Left of the 20th century -- I'll leave it to you to judge whether the movements of GLOBALIZE LIBERATION are really "beyond left and right," as he suggests, or are best thought of as an antiauthoritarian left. Here are the common principles Solnit sees in the new radicalism:

"...the commitment to uprooting the system that is the cause of our social and ecological problems; doing it ourselves with people power and direct action; making change without taking power; practicing direct democracy in our resistance and in the world we create; and making our efforts a laboratory of resistance, creating new language and new forms of struggle."

So the vision, while loose and diverse, is basically a vision of direct democracy and nonviolent direct action -- as Solnit says, "[a] common theme within the new radicalism is the practice of letting the means determine the ends." Groups like Public Citizen and the IPS, which are liberal or social democratic in orientation, are tactical allies of "the new radicalism," but ultimately have different aims. There are examples in the book from various protests, many in the U.S., but also elsewhere, including the U.K., Italy, Argentina, Mexico (of course, the Zapatistas), and Serbia. The book avoids any lengthy debate over the tactical issue (where exactly is the boundary on nonviolent action?), but stakes out a clear position in favor of NVA, particularly notable with the inclusion of Lakey, a long-time proponent of Gandhian nonviolent strategy. Lakey was an influential voice in the successful movement to remove Milosevich from power in Serbia, and the book includes his account of Otpor, the student movement which used creative non-cooperation tactics. The fact that the CIA & U.S. Endowment for Democrcy also backed Otpor is not addressed, though apparently the Otpor leaders minimize this and say the U.S. intel support was not critical, nor did it guide their objectives (this is from Lakey via the editor).

GLOBALIZE LIBERATION is an excellent, up-to-date primer on "the new radicalism." It isn't the only one, though -- see my "Tools for Activists Against Global Capital" for more. The 4 that are most similar to the present volume are WE ARE EVERYWHERE, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM, ANTI-CAPITALISM, and A MOVEMENT OF MOVEMENTS.

Given the crisis we face -- and I personally am most concerned about the ecological crisis, and the fact that the oil is running out without any concerted plan for a transition to renewable energy -- the activism of GLOBALIZE LIBERATION is a source of hope. And the most hopeful thing is that it will spark more activism!