We are delighted that our publisher, Bold Type Books, has just released a 10th anniversary edition of This Is An Uprising! This edition contains a new preface and afterward addressing our current political moment and discussing some key developments in the field of civil resistance over the past decade. It also includes an introduction by best-selling author and renowned climate activist Bill McKibben. (You can order a copy on Bookshop.org here, on Barnes & Noble here, or on Amazon here.)
It has been a great honor over the past decade to hear from readers who have benefited from the book and to be in dialogue with organizers who have experimented with and expanded on the ideas that we write about. For the new edition, we reflect on some of these conversations, and we write about how our own histories as activists led us to think about momentum-driven organizing in the first place.
As we write in the preface:
“This Is an Uprising was born from the belief that the dynamism of explosive mass protests could be fused with the strategic discipline of long-term organizing—and that the result could be a wave of revitalized social movements equal to the grave challenges we face in our country and our world.
In the ten years since the book was first published, we have been overwhelmed with the response it has received and by the number of people who have been moved to participate in the pursuit of this vision. Even in dark times, this project gives hope that a better future can be won, not through the intervention of elites but through the dedicated and collective efforts of a mobilized citizenry insistent on social and economic justice….
As an opening to this new edition, we wanted to take the opportunity to comment on the personal and historical origins of this book, as well as on how it speaks to the challenges of the present day. At a moment when free speech, democratic governance, and the social safety net in the United States have all come under fearsome assault by the second Trump administration, we believe the book is more relevant than ever—and that the organizing strategies it describes are urgently needed in the fight against growing authoritarianism….
Today we need democratic uprisings that are bold enough to confront the scale of the crisis we now face and strategic enough to outmaneuver the systems that created it. To promote this, we need resources that can guide those building outside of mainstream channels dominated by lawyers, lobbyists, and electoral consultants. We are honored to offer the tenth anniversary edition of This Is an Uprising as one such resource. If its readers are moved to act, rooting their hope in the craft and artistry of movement building, we will have achieved an important goal.”
Read more about the book here, or order a copy at one of the following links:
- on Amazon here.
- on Powell’s here,
- on Barnes & Noble here,
- on Books-A-Million here,
- or on Bookshop.org here.
In conjunction with the release of this new edition, The Guardian published a commentary we wrote about the power of mass non-cooperation and its importance in the defense of democracy! The essay draws from our new preface to the book, and it can be read in full here or here.
In the essay, we write:
The article also includes wise words from Frances Fox Piven, who reminds us: “Agitation and rising up from people at the bottom are good for democracy. They nourish democracy.”
To learn more about our current work and sign up for new writing, visit the Whirlwind Institute here.
