Addressing an important gap in the historiography of modern Assam, this book traces the relatively unexplored but profound transformations in the agrarian landscape of late- and post-colonial Assam that were instrumental in the making of modern Assamese peasantry and rural politics. It discusses the changing relations between various sections of peasantry, state, landed gentry, and politics of different ideological hues — nationalist, communist and socialist — and shows how a primarily agrarian question concerning peasantry came to occupy the centre stage in the nationalist politics of the state. It will especially interest scholars of history, agrarian and peasant studies, sociology, and contemporary politics, as also those concerned with Northeast India.
This is an open access book. The start of the 21st century has seen the world shaken by protests, from the Arab Spring to the Yellow Vests, from the Occupy movement to the social uprisings in Latin America. There are periods in history when large numbers of people have rebelled against the way things are, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917, and 1968. Today we are living in another time of outrage and discontent, a time that has already produced some of the largest protests in world history. This book analyzes almost three thousand protests that occurred between 2006 and 2020 in 101 countries covering over 93 per cent of the world population. The study focuses on the major demands driving world protests, such as those for real democracy, jobs, public services, social protection, civil rights, global justice, and those against austerity and corruption. It also analyzes who was demonstrating in each protest; what protest methods they used; who the protestors opposed; what was achieved; whether protests were repressed; and trends such as inequality and the rise of women’s and radical right protests. The book concludes that the demands of protestors in most of the protests surveyed are in full accordance with human rights and internationally agreed-upon UN development goals. The book calls for policy-makers to listen and act on these demands.
This is a history of student protests in Shanghai from the turn of the century to 1949, showing how these students experienced and help shape the course of the Chinese Revolution.
A penetrating analysis, written with a rare combination of passion and balanced assessment...Gebru's interpretation is subtle and persuasive and his arguments break new ground' - Times Higher Education Supplement This highly praised study of popular protest and resistance in Ethiopia focuses on three important peasant-based rebellions that occurred between 1941 and 1970.'
This nationally-acclaimed book shows how popular movements used nonviolent action to overthrow dictators, obstruct military invaders and secure human rights in country after country, over the past century. Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall depict how nonviolent sanctions--such as protests, strikes and boycotts--separate brutal regimes from their means of control. They tell inside stories--how Danes outmaneuvered the Nazis, Solidarity defeated Polish communism, and mass action removed a Chilean dictator--and also how nonviolent power is changing the world today, from Burma to Serbia.
A dynamic, timely history of nineteenth-century activists—free-lovers and socialists, abolitionists and vigilantes—and the social revolution they sparked in the turbulent Civil War era “In the tradition of Howard Zinn’s people’s histories, American Radicals reveals a forgotten yet inspiring past.”—Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SMITHSONIAN On July 4, 1826, as Americans lit firecrackers to celebrate the country’s fiftieth birthday, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were on their deathbeds. They would leave behind a groundbreaking political system and a growing economy—as well as the glaring inequalities that had undermined the American experiment from its beginning. The young nation had outlived the men who made it, but could it survive intensifying divisions over the very meaning of the land of the free? A new network of dissent—connecting firebrands and agitators on pastoral communes, in urban mobs, and in genteel parlors across the nation—vowed to finish the revolution they claimed the founding fathers had only begun. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America even while they fought to preserve the nation’s founding ideals: the brilliant heiress Frances Wright, whose shocking critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point; the Philadelphia businessman James Forten, who presided over the first mass political protest of free African Americans; Marx Lazarus, a vegan from Alabama whose calls for sexual liberation masked a dark secret; black nationalist Martin Delany, the would-be founding father of a West African colony who secretly supported John Brown’s treasonous raid on Harpers Ferry—only to ally himself with Southern Confederates after the Civil War. Though largely forgotten today, these figures were enormously influential in the pivotal period flanking the war, their lives and work entwined with reformers like Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Henry David Thoreau, as well as iconic leaders like Abraham Lincoln. Jackson writes them back into the story of the nation’s most formative and perilous era in all their heroism, outlandishness, and tragic shortcomings. The result is a surprising, panoramic work of narrative history, one that offers important lessons for our own time.
Winner of the 2015 James M. Britton Award presented by Conference on English Education a constituent organization within the National Council of Teachers of English Carmen Kynard locates literacy in the twenty-first century at the onset of new thematic and disciplinary imperatives brought into effect by Black Freedom Movements. Kynard argues that we must begin to see how a series of vernacular insurrections—protests and new ideologies developed in relation to the work of Black Freedom Movements—have shaped our imaginations, practices, and research of how literacy works in our lives and schools. Utilizing many styles and registers, the book borrows from educational history, critical race theory, first-year writing studies, Africana studies, African American cultural theory, cultural materialism, narrative inquiry, and basic writing scholarship. Connections between social justice, language rights, and new literacies are uncovered from the vantage point of a multiracial, multiethnic Civil Rights Movement.
This book is composed of stories about prejudice and protest in Wyoming between the1940s and the 70s, with a focus on the Black 14 incident at the University of Wyoming in 1969 in which all 14 African American players on the varsity roster were dismissed by the coach. The people and events leading up to the dismissals of these 14 varsity players on the University of Wyoming's undefeated and 12th ranked football team are examined in detail. The reaction in the state and the rapid decline in the football program, leading to the exit of the head coach, are described. The state will be reviewing the event during its 50th anniversary in 2019. Other issues examined include: -- The 1943 mass draft resistance trial of 63 young American citizens of Japanese descent from the Heart Mountain Internment Camp near Cody, Wyoming -- The removal from a "baby contest" of an African American toddler, son of a serviceman stationed in Casper during WWII -- The 1958 protest against the world's first ICBM missile site near Cheyenne in which Kenneth Calkins, a young graduate student from the Univ. of Chicago, suffered a fractured pelvis when hit by a gravel truck while doing civil disobedience. After earning a Ph.D. and becoming a history professor at Kent State, Calkins urged the removal of National Guard troops from the campus in the days leading to the killing of four students and then witnessed the event as a faculty marshal. -- The refusal of barbers in a small community college town in Wyoming to give haircuts to the black basketball players until after hours with the drapes closed. -- Protests of the Vietnam War and draft resistance in Wyoming, along with stories of Wyoming soldiers who fought in Vietnam, including one who is still missing and another who was a prisoner of war for nearly five years and whose MIA bracelet was worn by the winning contestant at a Miss America pageant. -- The story of a draft resister convicted in a Wyoming trial whose stand and story influenced Daniel Ellsburg to release the Pentagon Papers. -- The expulsion of African American students at a Cheyenne High School in 1972 after they refused to stand for the flag in protest to the Vietnam War and racial discrimination, leading to the dismissal of some students and an innovative teacher who supported them. -- Numerous examples of the "generation gap" and the war on counter-culture youth, such as a Wyoming sheriff jailing and shaving long-haired hitchhikers' heads. -- The story of two UW women students who participated in the 1964 "Freedom Summer" in Mississippi. -- Controversies over inter-racial dating, dress codes and curfews for coeds at the University of Wyoming in the 60s -- Repeal of Wyoming's anti-miscegenation law in 1965 and the defeat of an initiative which would have lowered the voting age in 1969-70.
"Explores protesting as an act of faith . . . How to Read a Protest argues that the women's marches of 2017 didn't just help shape and fuel a moment—they actually created one."—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker O, the Oprah Magazine’s “14 Best Political Books to Read Before the 2018 Midterm Election” "A fascinating and detailed history of American mass demonstrations."—Publishers Weekly When millions of people took to the streets for the 2017 Women’s Marches, there was an unmistakable air of uprising, a sense that these marches were launching a powerful new movement to resist a dangerous presidency. But the work that protests do often can’t be seen in the moment. It feels empowering to march, and record numbers of Americans have joined anti-Trump demonstrations, but when and why does marching matter? What exactly do protests do, and how do they help movements win? In this original and richly illustrated account, organizer and journalist L.A. Kauffman delves into the history of America’s major demonstrations, beginning with the legendary 1963 March on Washington, to reveal the ways protests work and how their character has shifted over time. Using the signs that demonstrators carry as clues to how protests are organized, Kauffman explores the nuanced relationship between the way movements are made and the impact they have. How to Read a Protest sheds new light on the catalytic power of collective action and the decentralized, bottom-up, women-led model for organizing that has transformed what movements look like and what they can accomplish.
