Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Politics & government

THIS IS AN UPRISING

Paul Engler Mark Engler

How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century

From protests to defend immigrant rights and combat climate change, to Occupy, #BlackLivesMatter, and the resistance to the Trump administration, a new generation is unleashing strategic nonviolent action to shape public debate and force political change.

In This Is an Uprising, Mark and Paul Engler look at the hidden art behind such outbursts of revolt, examining core principles that have sparked and guided moments of transformative unrest. With incisive insights from contemporary activists, as well as fresh revelations about the work of groundbreaking figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Gene Sharp, and Frances Fox Piven, the Englers show how people with few resources and little conventional influence can harness the power of nonviolent movements to create lasting change.

Mark Engler, a writer based in Philadelphia, is an editorial board member at Dissent, a contributing editor at Yes! Magazine, and author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books).
Paul Engler is founding director of the Center for the Working Poor, based in Los Angeles. He worked for more than a decade as an organizer in the immigrant rights, global justice, and labor movements.

Available products
Book Published 2017-10-03 by Bold Type Books
Book Published 2026-02-03 by Bold Type Books

Comments

The year 2017 is off the election cycle so the political action is likely to move into the streets. [That's why] I'm reading This Is an Uprising, by writer Mark Engler and his activist brother Paul. The book is a deeply in- formative history of direct action, from Martin Luther King Jr.'s ground- breaking Birmingham, Ala., campaign in 1963 to Occupy, the Arab Spring, and Black Lives Matter.

Building a truly mass, nonviolent resistance movement is key to solv- ing the twin crises of climate change and gaping inequality. Thankfully, the dynamics of past uprisings are not some inscrutable mystery; and as Mark and Paul Engler so vividly show here, today's organizers are build- ing on a deep and rich political tradition. As absorbing as it is ambitious, this indispensable book is studded with memorable stories and sharp arguments.

Mark and Paul Engler have compiled a true masterpiece on the history, logic, ethics, and power of nonviolent action. Sweeping in scope, full of insights, and eminently readable, this text is sure to inform and inspire for generations to come.