Direct Action: An Historical Novel
by Luke Hauser
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Book Summary Information
Author: Luke HauserEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Published: 2003-06-21
ISBN: 0974019402
Number of pages: 768
Publisher: GroundWork
Book Reviews of Direct Action: An Historical Novel
Book Review: Action Story + Photos = Winner!
Summary: 5 Stars
Any novelist could invent a rambling story about a bunch of activists in Berkeley and San Francisco who conspire to change the world, organize civil disobedience protests in which thousands of people are arrested, and spend days or weeks in jail. An imaginative writer might even add sub-plots concerning a "nukecycle," pagan rituals, elaborate graffitti actions, and one activist's obsession with an Air Force base.But not many novelists could back up their imagination with 300 photographs that hammer home the point - all of this really happened. The novel is built around a literal, blow-by-blow recounting of two years of 1980s direct actions in the Bay Area.
Direct Action could be this year's must-read action thriller, although occasionally Hauser seems bent on compressing a graduate-level textbook within the pages of his novel. Sometimes it works (jail-cell musings on strategy and organizing), sometimes it doesn't (class analysis during a graffitti expedition?).
The pages turn fastest when the actions are underway. The hapless narrator - a latter-day Hamlet - gropes his way through a dozen civil disobedience protests, ranging from huge anti-nuclear blockades to roving urban affinity-group actions. Along the way he and his compatriots learn their strategic and tactical lessons at the school of hard knocks, emerging sadder but wiser at the end of their odyssey through the depths of the Reagan era.
What truly elevates this book is the pictures. Hauser has collected over 300 images from the era - photographs, flyers, posters, newspapers - and peppered the novel with graphics. They exert a magnetic pull, drawing you forward during the slower moments toward an action a few pages ahead.
Besides the novel, the book includes a 35-page handbook on how to organize civil disobedience, making it a do-it-yourself protest kit for budding activists.
Sprawling as it is, this book dramatizes the back-story to today's anti-war and globalization protests, and will appeal to activists, organizers, and anyone concerned with social change. If it doesn't provide all the answers, it at least raises the right questions.
With a Foreword by Starhawk. 768 pages. 300 illustrations. ...
Summary of Direct Action: An Historical Novel
More than 7000 people were arrested in nonviolent protests in California in the early 1980s, developing the art of direct action to a peak not reached again until Seattle in 1999, and in many ways never surpassed.Direct Action is the novelized history of a community of activists who helped lay the foundation for today?s vibrant direct action movement ? from Seattle to the School of the Americas and back to the streets of San Francisco.
Direct action is more than getting arrested. It?s solidarity. It?s affinity groups and collective process. It?s nonhierarchy and respect for diversity. It?s coalitions and alliance-building. It isn?t just a political tactic ? it?s a whole new practice.
Actions at over a dozen sites, including:
-- Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab
-- Vandenberg Air Force Base
-- Concord Naval Weapons Station
-- Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
-- San Francisco Financial District
"Brought back the experiences so vividly that I could smell the unwashed bodies, feel the cold and the rough wool of the blankets, and taste once again that inimitable combination of spam and fruit cocktail the guards called ?The Empire Strikes Back!?" ? Starhawk, from the Foreword
768 Pages. With more than 300 photos and images from the LAG archives, plus a 35-page direct action handbook. Foreword by Starhawk.
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