Where is Egypt headed? Did the people 'bring down the government'? Has the country become the first front in a regional counter-revolution backed by the Gulf monarchies? These are only some of the questions that this volume - the first to describe the ongoing dynamics in Egypt since the outbreak of revolution - explores.

'An inspiring rallying cry for activists everywhere to work together to build a just, ecosocialist future' - Grace Blakeley Time is up. The climate crisis is no longer a future to be feared, but a devastating reality. We see it in the wildfires in California and floods across Britain - the 'once in a generation' extreme weather events that now happen every year. In a world where those in charge are constantly letting us down, real change in our lifetime means taking power into our own hands. The task ahead of us is daunting, but the emergence of a new wave of movements focused on climate justice, equality and solidarity also brings hope. Asking how we have arrived at this moment, Chris Saltmarsh argues that the profoundly political nature of the environmental crisis has been relentlessly downplayed. After all, how can solar panels save us while capitalism places profit over the future of the planet? Analysing the failures of NGOs, the limitations of Extinction Rebellion and Youth Strikes, the role of trade unions, and the possibilities of a Green New Deal, Burnt issues a powerful call for a radical collective movement: saving the world is not enough; we must build a better one in the process.

The Collected Papers 28 signals reinvigoration of Russell the public campaigner. The title of the volume is taken from one of his most famous and eloquent short essays and probably the best known of his many broadcasts for the BBC. Man's Peril, 1954-55 not only captures the essence of Russell's thinking about nuclear weapons and the Cold War in the mid-1950s, its extraordinary impact served to jolt him into political protest once again. The activism of which we glimpse the initial stirrings in this volume continued in various guises more or less without interruption until his death. In the writings assembled in this volume, however, he is looking towards the non-aligned states and world scientific opinion as possible brokers of détente. (The volume includes Russell's famous public statement, the declaration of scientists known as 'The Russell-Einstein Manifesto'.) Although Russell was becoming increasingly immersed in work for peace, this was not to the exclusion of all other interests. For example, here we find also him reminiscing about his peace campaigning during the First World War, defending 'History as an Art', and attacking the obscurantism of obscenity legislation and the opponents of birth control.

This book traces the evolution of organisational activism among Muslim women in India. It deconstructs the 'Muslim woman' as the monolith based on tropes like purdah, polygamy, and tin talaq and compels the reader to revisit the question of Muslim women's individual and collective agency. The book argues that the political field, along with religion, moulds the nature and scope of Muslim women's activism in India. It looks at the objectives of four Muslim women's organisations: the Bazm-e-Niswan, the Awaaz-e-Niswaan, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and the India International Women's Alliance (IIWA), in close interaction with the political landscape of Mumbai. The book explores the emergence of gender-inclusive interpretation of Muslim women's rights by Muslim women activists and challenges the dominant and reductionist stereotypes on Muslim women, community, and absolutist ideas of Islam. It argues that Muslim women are not passive victims of their culture and religion, rather they can develop a critique of their marginality and subjugation from within the community. Revisiting Muslim Women's Activism traces the evolution of a community-centric approach in women's activism and records a fragmented view on women's rights from within the community and religious leadership. It also delineates the distinctiveness of this activism that considers religion and culture as resources for empowerment and as sites of contestations. Moreover, the book documents the narratives of Muslim women's struggle and resistance from their location and lived experiences. It will be of interest to students and researchers of women's studies, gender studies, political science, sociology, anthropology, law, and Islamic studies.

Can a writer help to bring about a more just society? This question was at the heart of the movement of al-adab al-multazim, or committed literature, which claimed to dominate Arab writing in the mid-twentieth century. By the 1960s, however, leading Egyptian writers had retreated into disillusionment, producing agonized works that challenged the key assumptions of socially engaged writing. Rather than a rejection of the idea, however, these works offered reinterpretation of committed writing that helped set the stage for activist writers of the present.David DiMeo focuses on the work of three leading writers whose socially committed fiction was adapted to the disenchantment and discontent of the late twentieth century: Naguib Mahfouz, Yusuf Idris, and Sonallah Ibrahim. Despite their disappointments with the direction of Egyptian society in the decades following the 1952 revolution, they kept the spirit of committed literature alive through a deeply introspective examination of the relationship between the writer, the public, and political power.Reaching back to the roots of this literary movement, DiMeo examines the development of committed literature from its European antecedents to its peak of influence in the 1950s, and contrasts the committed works with those of disillusionment that followed. Committed to Disillusion is vital reading for scholars and students of Arabic literature and the modern history and politics of the Middle East.

From sites like Hollaback! and Everyday Sexism, which document instances of street harassment and misogyny, to social media-organized movements and communities like #MeToo and #BeenRapedNeverReported, feminists are using participatory digital media as activist tools to speak, network, and organize against sexism, misogyny, and rape culture. As the first book-length study to examine how girls, women, and some men negotiate rape culture through the use of digital platforms, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and mobile apps, the authors explore four primary questions: What experiences of harassment, misogyny, and rape culture are being responded to? How are participants using digital media technologies to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? Why are girls, women and some men choosing to mobilize digital media technologies in this way? And finally, what are the various experiences of using digital technologies to engage in activism? In order to capture these diverse experiences of doing digital feminist activism, the authors augment their analysis of this media (blog posts, tweets, and selfies) with in-depth interviews and close-observations of several online communities that operate globally. Ultimately, the book demonstrates the nuances within and between digital feminist activism and highlight that, although it may be technologically easy for many groups to engage in digital feminist activism, there remain emotional, mental, or practical barriers which create different experiences, and legitimate some feminist voices, perspectives, and experiences over others.

After decades of steady progress in terms of gender and sexual rights, several parts of Europe are facing new waves of resistance to a so-called 'gender ideology' or 'gender theory'. Opposition to progressive gender equality is manifested in challenges to marriage equality, abortion, reproductive technologies, gender mainstreaming, sex education, sexual liberalism, transgender rights, antidiscrimination policies and even to the notion of gender itself. This book examines how an academic concept of gender, when translated by religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, can become a mobilizing tool for, and the target of, social movements. How can we explain religious discourses about sex difference turning intro massive street demonstrations? How do forms of organization and protest travel across borders? Who are the actors behind these movements? This collection is a transnational and comparative attempt to better understand anti-gender mobilizations in Europe. It focuses on national manifestations in eleven European countries, including Russia, from massive street protests to forms of resistance such as email bombarding and street vigils. It examines the intersection of religious politics with rising populism and nationalistic anxieties in contemporary Europe.

The heart of any trade union is its reps and activists organising in the workplace. After years of membership decline across sectors, a renewed recognition of this essential fact is behind the 'turn to organising' in the union movement today. This turn to collective organising builds strength at a local as well as a national level, and also aids in mobilising around a wider range of political issues from campaigning against austerity to taking action for the environment. In recent years, this fusion of workplace organising and national campaigning has been exemplified by Europe's largest education trade union, the National Education Union (NEU). In Lessons in Organising, the authors bring together activist, academic and union official perspectives to assess the potential (and the limitations) of the 'turn to organising' and set out the case for a new transformative trade unionism for the 21st century.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 PARLIAMENTARY BOOK AWARDS THE SUNDAY TIMES BEST SELLER 'Will ruffle some feathers.' Stylist 'There's nobody else at Westminster quite like Jess Phillips. She is fearless and funny, riotous and rebellious, maverick and mischievous.' The Times 'Jess Phillips is a heroine' J.K. Rowling 'Truth to Power treats politics as what we need to remember it is: the solving of problems in people's lives, which one attempts by coming up with a plan and working with everyone. The purpose of the book is to show readers how they can change things too. I've been at events where she's been the surprise guest, and the audience jumped to their feet and whooped like Chrissie Hynde had come on stage to play Brass in Pocket, because someone like Jess Phillips in politics does a powerful thing. It makes millions of women like her think, "If she can do politics, maybe I could do politics too."' Caitlin Moran YOU HAVE MORE POWER THAN YOU THINK. At a time when many of us feel the world isn't listening, Jess Phillips offers inspiration to those of us who want to speak out and make a difference. No stranger to speaking truth to power herself, she will help you dig deep and get organised, finding the courage and the tools you need to take action. As well as bringing us hope through her own experiences Jess talks to the accidental heroes who have been brave enough to risk everything, become whistle-blowers and successfully fight back. These inspiring people, often living everyday lives, who then found themselves at the centre of the storm and spoke truth to power include: Zelda Perkins, the personal assistant who first called-out Harvey Weinstein; Paul Caruana Galizia, son of murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia; Tom Watson the British MP who successfully took on the Murdoch press empire and won; Sara Rowbotham, the sexual-health worker who uncovered the abuse of young girls by gangs of Asian men in Rochdale - and the subsequent cover-up by the authorities; Natasha Elcock, resident of Grenfell Tower and chair of Grenfell United, the pressure group set up by families after the disaster; Cara Sanquest from the campaign to legalise women's right to choose abortion in Ireland. Entertaining, empowering and uncompromising, TRUTH TO POWER is the book we all need to help us call time on the seemingly unstoppable tide of bullshit in our lives.

Controversy and Coalition is a comprehensive and engaging overview of the American women's movement from the 1960s to the 1990s. This third edition is the only short and highly readable book on the important developments of the recent women's movement. This edition includes a new introduction by the authors that cover the rise of global feminism.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203900502

The women of the Socialist/Communist Unione Donne Italiane (UDI) and the lay Catholic Centro Italiano Femminile (CIF) are the protagonists in this keen study of the relationship between national Italian women's associations and international women's movements from 1944, when the associations became active, to 1968, when another generation of activists led women's movements in a new direction. By considering the reach and impact of these organizations in relation to Italian bipolarism (the nearly equal division of the Italian people into two camps, one pro-Communist and the other pro-Western) and world events, Dr. Wendy Pojmann demonstrates that women played a much larger role than Cold War histories tend to relate. Not just voters, women were active political participants during the tumultuous decades of the Cold War. Italian Women in International Cold War Politics, 1944-1968 pays particular attention to the UDI's work with the largest international postwar women's organization, the pro-Soviet Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), and the CIF's relationship with the global Catholic organization the World Movement of Mothers (WMM), to better understand the ways in which the Cold War affected both national and international agendas for women's rights. The Italian case is particularly significant in placing women's movements in a broader context because it exemplifies many of the political and ideological dichotomies that characterized this period. With the Christian Democrats at the helm of the Italian government and the powerful opposition of the Communists, the Italian women's associations developed and used creative negotiation strategies to advance their visions of womanhood in a new era. They applied similar practices in their international work. This engaging, well-documented book draws on new and original material from archival collections and oral histories to develop a critical understanding of the important but often overlooked period in women's activism between the 1940s and 1970s.

American suburbs have been seen as both exclusive idylls for elites as well as crucibles for new ideologies of gender, class, race, and property. But few have considered what the growing diversity of suburban America has meant for progressive social, economic, and political justice movements. Social This title is a pioneering and multidisciplinary volume that reassesses commonplace understandings of suburban activism.

From 1994 to 2006, William F. Schulz headed Amnesty International USA. During this time, he and the organization confronted some of the greatest challenges to human rights, including genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan; controversies over the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the use of torture by the United States after 9/11; as well as growing concern about inequities in the American justice system, from police misconduct to the death penalty. Drawing upon his encounters with tyrants, the inspiration of brave human rights heroes, and collaborations with celebrities ranging from Patrick Stewart to Salma Hayek, Schulz uses poignant narrative and amusing anecdotes to discuss the day-to-day realities of struggling with life-and-death human rights crises. In the process he ducks an assassination threat in Liberia; brings tears to the eyes of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland; and bests America's self-described "toughest sheriff" on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect. Full of reflection as well as action, Reversing the Rivers provides Schulz with the opportunity to address profound philosophical questions, such as "What is the nature of evil?"; "How do we foster the 'better angels of our nature'?" "When may we use force to stop people from using force?" "Is the prohibition on torture as simple as it seems?" and "What's wrong with an eye for an eye?" Most important, in an eloquent concluding chapter, he answers the quandary most frequently posed to him during his years at Amnesty, "Given all the horrors in the world you see day after day, how do you retain any hope at all in humanity?"

An empowering memoir of resilience and redemption, and the rage that helped a girl escape the darkness of a harrowing childhood. Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit. Coming of age with a myriad of fears and emotional disorders, Lisbeth had three things that would become driving forces in her life: she was extraordinarily bright, extremely willful, and exceptionally angry. From hell to liberation, this is Lisbeth’s emotional and galvanizing memoir told in two voices: that of a young girl who was unwanted, challenged, and defiant, and that of a woman who channeled her rage into a positive force as a passionate advocate for children’s rights. Whatever darkness defines the past, it can be used to change the future. Lisbeth’s heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting journey is proof.

One woman's national, political, ethnic, social, and personal identities impart an extraordinary perspective on the histories of Europe, Polish Jews, Communism, activism, and survival during the twentieth century. Tonia Lechtman was a Jew, a loving mother and wife, a Polish patriot, a committed Communist, and a Holocaust survivor. Throughout her life these identities brought her to multiple countries--Poland, Palestine, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel--during some of the most pivotal and cataclysmic decades of the twentieth century. In most of those places, she lived on the margins of society while working to promote Communism and trying to create a safe space for her small children. Born in Lodz in 1918, Lechtman became fascinated with Communism in her early youth. In 1935, to avoid the consequences of her political activism during an increasingly anti-Semitic and hostile political environment, the family moved to Palestine, where Tonia met her future husband, Sioma. In 1937, the couple traveled to Spain to participate in the Spanish Civil War. After discovering she was pregnant, Lechtman relocated to France while Sioma joined the International Brigades. She spent the Second World War in Europe, traveling with two small children between France, Germany, and Switzerland, at times only miraculously avoiding arrest and being transported east to Nazi camps. After the war, she returned to Poland, where she planned to (re)build Communist Poland. However, soon after her arrival she was imprisoned for six years. In 1971, under pressure from her children, Lechtman emigrated from Poland to Israel, where she died in 1996. In writing Lechtman's biography, Anna Muller has consulted a rich collection of primary source material, including archival documentation, private documents and photographs, interviews from different periods of Lechtman's life, and personal correspondence. Despite this intimacy, Muller also acknowledges key historiographical questions arising from the lacunae of lost materials, the selective preservation of others, and her own interpretive work translating a life into a life story.

Chartism is an essential introduction to the movement, and examines the controversial debates surrounding the topic. As well as providing a concise period background, the author includes discussion of:
* the Chartists' economic, legislative and political goals
* patterns of regional and local support
* reasons for the Chartist decline
* the success of Chartism in the light of its goals and its influence over the Poor Law, Corn Laws, trade unions and factory reform
* the languages of Chartism - songs, gesture and propaganda.

In the first book of its kind, Bassel and Emejulu explore minority women's experiences of and resistances to austerity measures in France and Britain. Minority women are often portrayed as passive victims. However, Minority women and austerity demonstrates how they use their race, class, gender and legal status as a resource for collective action in the face of the neoliberal colonisation of non-governmental organisations, the failures of left-wing politics and the patronising initiatives of policy-makers. Using in-depth case studies, this book explores the changing relations between the state, the market and civil society which create opportunities and dilemmas for minority women activists. Through an intersectional 'politics of survival' these women seek to subvert the dominant narratives of 'crisis' and 'activism'.

William Monroe Trotter (1872- 1934), though still virtually unknown to the wider public, was an unlikely American hero. With the stylistic verve of a newspaperman and the unwavering fearlessness of an emancipator, he galvanized black working- class citizens to wield their political power despite the violent racism of post- Reconstruction America. For more than thirty years, the Harvard-educated Trotter edited and published the Guardian, a weekly Boston newspaper that was read across the nation. Defining himself against the gradualist politics of Booker T. Washington and the elitism of W. E. B. Du Bois, Trotter advocated for a radical vision of black liberation that prefigured leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Synthesizing years of archival research, historian Kerri Greenidge renders the drama of turn- of- the- century America and reclaims Trotter as a seminal figure, whose prophetic, yet ultimately tragic, life offers a link between the vision of Frederick Douglass and black radicalism in the modern era.

'Duty and Dynamite: A Life of Activism' traces the life story of Laloo 'Isu' Chiba. The son of Gujarati immigrants to South Africa, he shows little interest in politics in his early life, instead associating with the notorious Fordsburg gangster, Sharif Khan. His gradual politicisation in 1950s Johannesburg leads to his recruitment into the first generation of Umkhonto we Sizwe freedom fighters, where he displays resourcefulness and bravery in equal measure. That earns him torture, detention and ultimately eighteen years in prison on Robben Island. He is devastated by his separation from his wife and three young daughters for close on to two decades. On the Island, alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada, he excels as one of the transcribers of Mandela's autobiography, as a key communications operative, and originator of the prisoners' garden. Soon after his release, he immerses himself in the politics of the United Democratic Front, where he distinguishes himself as a leading activist of the democratic movement. After 1994, he is called upon to serve as an ANC MP for two terms in SA's democratic Parliament, where he steadfastly fights against corruption in the Arms Deal. This autobiography , published posthumously, talks to a life of duty to the cause of freedom.

In this book, the most prolific contemporary African American scholar and cultural theorist Molefi Kete Asante leads the reader on an informative journey through the mind of Maulana Karenga, one of the key cultural thinkers of our time. Not only is Karenga the creator of Kwanzaa, an extensive and widespread celebratory holiday based on his philosophy of Kawaida, he is an activist-scholar committed to a "dignity-affirming" life for all human beings. Asante examines the sources of Karenga's intellectual preoccupations and demonstrates that Karenga's concerns with the liberation narratives and mythic realities of African people are rooted in the best interests of a collective humanity.

The book shows Karenga to be an intellectual giant willing to practice his theories in order to manifest his intense emotional attachment to culture, truth and justice. Asante's enlightening presentation and riveting critique of Karenga's works reveal a compelling account of a thinker whose contributions extend far beyond the Academy. Although Karenga began his career as a student activist, a civil rights leader, a Pan Africanist, and a culturalist, he ultimately succeeds in turning his fierce commitment to truth toward dissecting political, social, and ethical issues. Asante carefully analyzes Karenga's important works on Black Studies, but also his earlier works on culture and his later works on ethics, such as "The Husia," and "Odu Ifa: The Ethical Teachings."

What can culture, and its manifestations in artistic and creative forms, 'do'? Creativity and resistance in a hostile world draws on original collaborative research that brings together a range of stories and perspectives on the role of creativity and resistance in a hostile world. In times of racial nationalism across the world, this volume seeks to understand how creative acts have agitated for social change. The book suggests that creative actions themselves, and acting together creatively, can at the same time offer vital sources of hope. Drawing on a series of case studies, this volume focuses on the past and emergent grassroots arts work that has responded to racisms, the legacies of colonialism or the depredations of capitalist employment across several contexts and locations, including England, Northern Ireland and India. The book makes a timely intervention, foregrounding the value of creativity for those who are commonly marginalised from centres of power, including from the mainstream cultural industries. The authors also critically reflect on the possibilities and limitations of collaborative research within and beyond the academy. -- .

A vivid portrait collection of past and present Americans speaking truth to power The first volume of Robert Shetterly's Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series, Portraits of Racial Justice takes a multimedia, interdisciplinary approach, blending art and history with today's issues concerning social, environmental, and economic fairness. Shetterly's paintings, as well as profiles of those portrayed, illuminate a community of people not only willing to recognize the shortcomings of America's history, but most importantly, individuals who offer their visions of a better world moving forward. Starting with Michelle Alexander and ending with Dave Zirin, the diverse array of fifty full-color portraits spans multiple generations and struggles. This volume also includes four original opening essays on racial justice in the United States by Ai-jen Poo, Dave Zirin, Sherri Mitchell, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., which provide an intersectional response to the long-term goal of diversity and inclusion. As Shetterly says, "without activism, hope is merely sentimental." Portraits of Racial Justice, Shetterly's homage to transformative game-changers and status-quo fighters, provides the inspiration necessary to spark social change.

Many of us may have participated in grassroots groups, changing the world in small and big ways, from building playgrounds and feeding the homeless, to protesting wars and ending legal segregation. Beyond the obvious fruits of these activities, what are the broader consequences of volunteering for the participants, recipients of aid, and society as a whole?

In this engaging new book, Nina Eliasoph encourages readers to reflect on their own experiences in civic associations as an entry point into bigger sociological, political, and philosophical issues, such as class inequality, how organizations work, differences in political systems around the globe, and the sources of moral selfhood. Claims about volunteering tend to be astronomical: it will create democracy, make you a better person, eliminate poverty, protect local cultures, and even prevent illness. Eliasoph cuts through these assertions by drawing on empirical studies, key data, real-life case studies, and a range of theoretical analyses.

In doing so, the book provides students of sociology, political science, and communications studies with a framework for evaluating the role of civic associations in social and political life, as well as in their own lives as active citizens.