Recently, a wall was built in eastern Germany. Made of steel and cement blocks, topped with razor barbed wire, and reinforced with video monitors and movement sensors, this wall was not put up to protect a prison or a military base, but rather to guard a three-day meeting of the finance ministers of the Group of Eight (G8). The wall manifested a level of security that is increasingly commonplace at meetings regarding the global economy. The authors of Shutting Down the Streets have directly observed and participated in more than 20 mass actions against global in North America and Europe, beginning with the watershed 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle and including the 2007 G8 protests in Heiligendamm. Shutting Down the Streets is the first book to conceptualize the social control of dissent in the era of alterglobalization. Based on direct observation of more than 20 global summits, the book demonstrates that social control is not only global, but also preemptive, and that it relegates dissent to the realm of criminality. The charge is insurrection, but the accused have no weapons. The authors document in detail how social control forecloses the spaces through which social movements nurture the development of dissent and effect disruptive challenges.

Recently, a wall was built in eastern Germany. Made of steel and cement blocks, topped with razor barbed wire, and reinforced with video monitors and movement sensors, this wall was not put up to protect a prison or a military base, but rather to guard a three-day meeting of the finance ministers of the Group of Eight (G8). The wall manifested a level of security that is increasingly commonplace at meetings regarding the global economy. The authors of Shutting Down the Streets have directly observed and participated in more than 20 mass actions against global in North America and Europe, beginning with the watershed 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle and including the 2007 G8 protests in Heiligendamm. Shutting Down the Streets is the first book to conceptualize the social control of dissent in the era of alterglobalization. Based on direct observation of more than 20 global summits, the book demonstrates that social control is not only global, but also preemptive, and that it relegates dissent to the realm of criminality. The charge is insurrection, but the accused have no weapons. The authors document in detail how social control forecloses the spaces through which social movements nurture the development of dissent and effect disruptive challenges.

'Don't Owe! Won't Pay!', 'Get Rid of them All!', 'No Patents on Life!', 'Food Sovereignty', 'Another World is Possible!' ... The struggles against corporate power and the institutions of globalization grow more courageous and confident year by year. Millions of people have already become active in rejecting corporate globalization and developing alternatives to it. Millions more know that something is terribly wrong and are ready to begin taking action. This book is for them. Amory Starr is author of Naming the Enemy, a book that foresaw the emergent anti-globalization network nearly a decade ago. Here she provides, in concise and engaging style and with activist insight: A history of the movements' emergence. An outline of their analyses and aims. A digest of the ongoing controversies and dilemmas. An inspiring compendium of popular tactics.

Naming the Enemy is the first systematic documentation of this international resistance to transnational corporations and globalization that has so recently burst into the public gaze with the street protests in Seattle, Washington, London and Prague. This book is relevant to activists as well as students and scholars of globalization, new social movements and political economy."--BOOK JACKET.