Activism Books

As a fairly secular American Christian I feel relatively nonpartisan in this tragic and ongoing confrontation. However, the more I have interacted with Israelis and Palestinians over the past 3 years, the more I began to feel that the debates between them did not square with my understanding of the conflict. Especially with respect to the peace process after 1993 and the entire involvement of the Clinton administration.

This book is a powerful, succint and spot-on antidote to the heavily biased media coverage in the United States. It presents the Palestinian case in an articulate fashion and lays out why seemingly fair proposals were designed such that their implementation would have either been impossible or deeply favorable to the stae of Israel.

But above all, Bishara explores the less tangible elements of the conflict which are oft ignored, yet are perhaps the most crucial dimensions. Who is "guilty"? Who will emerge as the "benevolent" party in the conflict? Who is generous & fair, and who is hateful and untrustworthy? These attributes Bishara argues are deeply skewed to the advantage of the Israelis under nearly all current negotiations, no matter what their strictly territorial or other tangible aspects. These psychological dimensions are what remain unaddressed and are what will perpetuate the violence which has already harmed so many.

Read this book if only for the sake of those whose voice goes unheard.

These days, Marwan Bishara's older brother, Azmi Bishara, the Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, is being prosecuted for political statements he made in Syria and Um-Al-Fahm. As a Palestinian living in Israel, i sympathize with Azmi Bishara and point an accusing finger at Israel's hypocritical and racist "democratic" machinery. My accusations do not stem from hate nor from any racist basis, but from a belief in the justice of the Palestinian cause, and the belief in a future where Palestinians and Jews will be able to live together in peace and as equals. However, Marwan Bishara's analysis of the Palestinian/Israeli dispute current condition enlightens the reader with details that have not been highlighted during the conflict in the last decade. Marwan is a penetrating critic of Israeli and American policies. He guides the reader through layers and layers of details concerning the dispute on a very profound level. During his analysis, the reader gets to know the true origins of the term 'Tanzim', and how the Israeli secret security service(Shabak) turned it into a name of a notorious terrorist group that did not exist. Marwan also provides the reader with information about Al Gore's motivation for supporting the Oslo Agreement, and about his economical interest in the success of the agreement. This book should be read with an open mind, and the reader should prepare him/herself for fundamental changes in his/her perception of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

If you happen to be a Palestinian or relate to the media's version of a Palestinian Cause, looking to feed your fervor, this book is definitely for you. If you happen to have a pro-Israel stance and bear an intellectual capacity to distinguish between pseudo scholarly bias and nonsense, this book is also for you (you'll be able to cement your case). BUT, if you are someone with common sense looking for a somewhat truthful or dare I say historic approach to this sensitive material, than save your money and buy another book or take a class in Middle Eastern Affaires. This work is quite weak, tedious, and appears to have been fallen victim to horribly poor translation (there's no indication that this work has been translated, however, it's quite apparent by the outrageous use of language in the book that something's odd). Perhaps my opinion of this book might improve were I to read the Arabic version, should one actually exist, and provided the laughable content was in fact a blundering consequence of the translation.

In this incredible display of projection, Marwan Bishara presents nonsense instead of any sort of case.

The author does not like Ariel Sharon. As a matter of fact, he'd probably want to indict Sharon for crimes against humanity. It is as if Bishara does not realize that most Arab "moderates" (not to mention the extremists) are well to the right, politically, of fascism, and even further to the right of Sharon. And if Bishara doesn't like Sharon, just why didn't he oppose the Arab violence that preceded (and helped ensure) Sharon's election?

As near as I can tell, Bishara wants to turn back the clock a couple of centuries, perhaps to a time when Blacks and Jews, um, knew their place. Well, I'm a liberal and I certainly oppose a return to those days. The author says that another de Klerk is needed. I agree. An Arab de Klerk.

Bishara wants the Arabs to swipe part or all of Israel's capital, Jerusalem. And to support this idea, he appears to pretend that the Arabs, not Israel, are land-poor and Israel, not the Arabs, are land-rich holders of millions of square miles. He pretends that the disputed West Bank is "occupied" territory. And he seems to want to destroy Israel by pumping in Arabs who promise to vote to abolish human rights for Jews there. Well, maybe he ought to consider the possibility that what goes around can come around. Greedy and dishonest aggressors do not always win. World War Two proved that.

The author keeps talking about Israel, Israel, and Israel as if Israel were the solution to all of the world's problems. But it isn't. He and those who agree with him ought to grow up.

Mark Andersen probably means well. However the admonitions about how radicals "should" behave are paternalistic, poorly thought out, and occasionally offensive.

Nobody but nobody who wants to change anything needs to have this kind of deadening advice at any point. It's not because Mark isn't entitled to his opinion or even that it's necessarily wrong (I guess I agree with a lot of what's in here). But if you want to tell other people how they should behave in potential future situations, it would be better to be direct and to use a bit more humility. Mark seems to want to construct big old "we" statements in this confusing mixture of personal anecdote and opinion. He'd have done much better to stick to purer I and you statements and leave people the room and dignity not only to make up their own minds but to find their own ways--ones that may be better than anything Mark can imagine.

There is a deep lack of respect for other people's different tactics. So in a way this is just another book by someone who has already decided what a better world looks like and is trying to get everyone not only to share that same vision but to use the same tactics to get there.

Many former punk rockers seem to have got religiously censorious in their old age. My notion during the 70s and 80s was that a lot of punk rockers were working stuff out in art that they'd have done better working out in sex or politics. Today many of them seem to be divorced from their emotions and hearts (and their emotions don't seem to have matured or been nurtured much) but that's all my personal junk--bottom line is that the tone of this book gives me the creeps.

I was moved to write a review here, something I never do, by the inaccuracy or apathy expressed in the only other review of this radical text. This is a book for those striving to achieve success in social justice movemnts.

I have been involved in movements for social change since I was a teenager, and even moreso once I was introduced to punk culture. Punk is not just music. Punk is not just an aesthetic. Punk is an attempt to reframe and alter the injustice that is pervasive among the many, and championed by the few.

Andersen wants us---punks, activists, feminists, enviromentalists, anarchists, etc---to learn from his vast experience. He has an important story to tell. As Jello Biafra states on the book's jacket: "In your grasp is a heartfelt, brick-by-brick guide from a committed veteran activist on heart, soul, music, his own life's surprises, and how we can all bring ongoing change to our own communities."

I emphatically encourage anyone with any interest in social change or activism to read this book! I am buying copies for a few community centers in my area because I want the activists in my community to consider Andersen's points and reconsider their own place and the place of others in the fight for social change.

"All the Power" is confusing. It's semi-biographical and semi-activism information. Written by Mark Anderson, a classic punk, it should be good, right? Right?

Wrong.

The problem with this book is that it's just too boring. And by boring I mean I rather put a bullet in my face than even think about trying to get through this again.

Many people interested in the Middle-East enjoy reading this book for many reasons. The first of them being that the author states non-bias information about the political details suffocating and provoking a continual cylce of turmoil in the arena. His writing is eloquently smooth and he slowly guides his readers where he wants them to be. For anyone willing to open their hearts and minds to an array of stimulating perspectives, then you're choice to buy this book is the right choice. You must forget about being Palestinian and Israeli. You must stand neutral when reading this book and/or any book to be fulfilled and to soak it in like a sponge. He has beautiful writing style.

If you happen to be a Palestinian or relate to the media's version of a Palestinian Cause, looking to feed your fervor, this book is definitely for you. If you happen to have a pro-Israel stance and bear an intellectual capacity to distinguish between pseudo scholarly bias and nonsense, this book is also for you (you'll be able to cement your case). BUT, if you are someone with common sense looking for a somewhat truthful or dare I say historic approach to this sensitive material, than save your money and buy another book or take a class in Middle Eastern Affaires. This work is quite weak, tedious, and appears to have been fallen victim to horribly poor translation (there's no indication that this work has been translated, however, it's quite apparent by the outrageous use of language in the book that something's odd). Perhaps my opinion of this book might improve were I to read the Arabic version, should one actually exist, and provided the laughable content was in fact a blundering consequence of the translation

This book, while complete in its specific knowledge, is rather misleading. Anyone buying it, or scanning the index may believe it gives an account of the conflict. However, it is a(n incomplete) account of the collapse of the Camp David accords, and the author's prediction of the shape of things to come(which while accurate will be better-written-about from the 'now' perspective). The maps could have been more complete, and some more historical background would have been welcomed. Strong for the time it was published, this book will likely date too much for any future purchases.

To say that an existing communist threat in Europe during Franco's era (the 30s & 40s) was a created myth, is just shameless trash. Umm... lets see, by the 1950s half of Europe was communist. If there is brain washing it is in this book. It is very well know that there was a Russian presence in Spain, and that Spanish children in the middle of the chaos were being taken by the Russians for forced labor, etc. Franco was a military man before anything else, and although communists were hiding under people with some fair ideals and another name (as usual) Franco like many more Spaniards was not naïve or myopic and saw the eminent threat of what was happening in Spain and took action before Spain followed the desteny of many others in becoming another Russian satellite nation.

Of course many "intellectuals" who live in their naïve closed world and still think that communism is acceptable and fair will attack Franco, because of what they just read in the theorycal Communist Manifesto, inferiority complexes, just fools, or what ever. Yet for the rest of us with some common sense, it is obvious that not only was communism a real threat, but it has proven to be one of the most oppressive, useless, corrupt, and destructive systems many countries have seen in modern history. Pol Pot of Cambodia (killed 2 million of his people), Kim Yang Il of North Korea (just compare the north to the south, it says it all), Stalin in Russia (needless to say), Castro in Cuba (destroyed the country in Latin America with the highest middle class per capita and one of the best economies in America, to say the least) Ceusescu of Romania who (forced women to have x amount of children, etc)

In conclusion, any system that wants to control the minimum of aspects in peoples lives, does not allow its citizen to own personal property, move freely, have economic independence, propose change, or the right to decide their own destiny, and are put to work for pennies, this system (communism) is just synonym of slavery, and all communist leaders know this from day one, aside from the destruction they leave behind. Was Franco a dictator? Yes, but he was not a self centered egomaniac, he made public his military presence was a transitional one, he was not there to impose a "system" or a "monarchy" for his family to continue, he was there for Spain, took Spain out of its poverty and created the economic foundations for Spain to continue its democratic course after his departure, and that has to be admired and respected. This book tries to distort the reality of the situation to discredit this man, who given the circumstances of its moment was a great leader.

Herbert Southworth (1908-1999) was an outstanding historian of the Spanish Civil War. His many superb books include Le mythe de la croisade de Franco (1964), and Guernica! Guernica! A Study of Journalism, Diplomacy, Propaganda and History (1977). This new book is a triumphant affirmation of his career as a historian and opponent of fascism. Based on years of careful research, and written with lucidity, wit and humour, this book is both an excellent introduction to the vast literature on the war, and a significant contribution to that literature.

Southworth tells us exactly how Spanish fascists concocted the story of a `communist plot' to try to justify their July 1936 military uprising against the democratically elected government. He shows how Spain's fascists accused their enemies of the anti-democratic conspiracy that they were brewing themselves - a technique that fascists have used from Berlin in 1933 to Indonesia in 1965. Fascist propagandists throughout Europe, particularly in Britain, publicised the story of the `plot'. Too many subsequent historians have followed these propagandists and repeated their fascist fabrications. Southworth refutes in detail both the crude, open pro-Franco propagandists like Brian Crozier and the more sly anti-working class biases of Hugh Thomas.

The second part of the book deals with the writings that most influenced General Franco himself. It tells the story of Franco's associations with the Entente Internationale contre la Troisieme International, which consisted of a White Russian and a Swiss lawyer. This anti-democratic, anti-communist propaganda unit purveyed the usual dreary litany of diatribes against Jews and Freemasons; it naturally backed Hitler, Mussolini and Franco from first to last, and it passed on and embellished every lie and slander about trade unions, the labour movement, socialists and communists. Southworth proves that this tenth-rate dishonest tripe had a profound influence on General Franco.

Dr.Bereket is a traitor to his nation and to himself. He wanted a position in the government that he was not fit for. He formed an opposition group, that is not a crime. His groups meets in Ethiopia, that is treasonous. No real Eritrean would do such a thing. His wife is Ethiopian, it matters in the context of his criticisms of the government of Eritrea. He romanticizes the worst leader in Africa's history, Haile Selassie. The reason I believe this is because he is a man whose decisions still affects Africa today, in terms of the lack of pan-africanism and the ineffectiveness of the A.U. Eritrea does not have the same "democracy" that America has. That is true, please review history and see how long it took for America to achieve this. Anyone can google photos of Eritrea, or videos and tell me if you see a cleaner, safer African city. The government has made sure that corruption would not be an Eritrean problem.Is there compulsory military service? Yes. Are Jehovah Witnesses illegal? Yes. These same two facts are true for Israel. Is Eritrea suspicious of missionaries?-both Christian and Muslims- You bet. We know history and we know how infiltration occurs. We were Christians before those who wish to come in and introduce Christianity. We have been Muslims since the time Mohammed's family fled into Eritrea. There is nothing new in either holy book , so why are they coming? Take a guess. Our leaders have all of their kids-boys and girls- in the army. Why is that important? I wonder how quickly Bush and company would have gone into Iraq if the twins were in the army.We do not accept full aid. We like cooperative programs that make us independent. a perfect example is the medial program in conjunction with George Washington University. While the BBC is reporting that the capitol of Ethiopia is like an open sewer, Eritrea is lauded by the EU for being committed to recycling, before it became in vogue. While Ethiopia receives billions in aid per year is on he verge of famine,Eritrea is working towards food security. Eritrea is run by men and women, not angels and saints so mistakes can and will happen. There are things that you can never do if you are Eritrean, and betraying your country is foremost. We would sooner betray our families or ourselves then our country, because the price of Eritrea of a free Eritrea was too high. It would dishonor those who gave their lives not just with death, but spent their whole lives in the struggle. These are men and women who have never known a moment of rest. .As long as he is alive, he can add a chapter of reconcilliation and forgiveness to his memoirs. It would be sad if he never gets to see Eritrea again. If there is apiece of Eritrea left in him then he would not be able to stand this. Perhaps all that was Eritrean in him died when he went to Ethiopia. Eritreans have survived 60 years of colonial rule, 11 years of British administration, and 31 years of Ethiopian occupation, does he really think we would be held under the thumb of a dictator? No he does not .He knows Isias and knows him well, and Isias knows him very well. If Dr.Bereket was ignorant then he could be forgiven, since he is quite intelligent his memoirs are sad.

"The Crown..." is yet another great achievement by professor Bereket, who writes with simple yet clear language about his life story, which is an extraordinary story indeed. It is fascinating to read about his humble beginning in the beautiful highlands of Eritrea, to universities in Europe at early age, to the courts of Emperor Haile Sellassie, to student and social movements of Ethiopia, and finally into the independence movement of his native Eritrea. Indeed, "The crown and the pen..." is an excellent achievement by a man who has seen and been in extraordinary historical events in the recent histories of both Eritrea and Ethiopia.

If you are an academic involved with the field of social movements, you need to read this book, simply because so much of the current debate in the field is about it. If you are not such a person, don't bother. Dynamics of Contention is immensely disappointing. Within the field of social movement studies, the authors are supposed to be the equivalent of Olympic-level divers--but what they deliver is a spectacular bellyflop. I give the book two stars because the core ideas lying behind it are good. The authors want to break down the artificial academic barriers separating various fields that all deal with "contentious politics"--social movements, revolutions, ethnic conflict, etc. They also want to move beyond their own structurally oriented work, so central to the academic field of social movements, to try to incorporate the ideas of their cultural constructionist critics, plus introduce more of a focus on social relations. Instead of trying to create an invariant model, they want to search for patterns that recurr in widely different types of social conflicts, with different outcomes. Finally, their methodology of comparing unlike cases to find the common patterns is intriguing. Unfortunately, they never really develop a solid intellectual framework for all this. They identify some common patterns, but never explain the dynamics underlying them or why they are so common. They are rather inept in their attempts to bring culture into the picture, engaging in very thin description. In their attempt to create a more relational approach, they completely abandonn all the valuable structurally oriented work they've done. Finally, despite their attempt to focus on relationships and dynamic social actors, human agency--as in so much academic work on social movements--falls out of the picture. Although the authors obviously put a lot of work into this book, it just does not come together.

Charles Tilly and his colleagues' effort in Dynamics of Contention is a colossal one. They aim to develop a new way of looking at contentious politics and try to gauge similar patterns in what have so far been regarded as distinct phenomena. Such an effort ends up having merits as well as handicaps, though. I will try to address three issues in this paper (one merit and two handicaps).

The place of case studies in comparative research has long been an issue of debate. Given that all empirical analyses in Dynamics of Contention are eventually case studies, the virtue of the arguments developed in this book might support/undermine the overall virtue of case studies regarding comparative research. Obviously, the arguments and conclusions of Tilly and his colleagues cannot be generalized from their pair-studies, and these scholars admit this from the very start anyway. Yet if we consider theory-building a process comprising of several steps, rather than an end point where we finalize our propositions, case studies become useful tools that we can benefit from in most of the steps of theory building. What makes case studies in general and Tilly and his friends' research in particular important is that via thorough analyses of individual cases, this type of research is better equipped to capture the "mechanism" and "processes" that connect relevant phenomena. And this gives them a relative advantage over large-N studies in speculating about causal relationships. Indeed, then, if Dynamics of Contention is not a theory-building research, it is a very good hypothesis-generating one.

Yet it seems to me that Tilly et al. are doing what Sartori once criticized as excessive abstraction. The primary aim of the authors of Dynamics of Contention is to go beyond the previous static approaches and develop a dynamic approach to contentious politics. Though this sounds very exciting and promising, Tilly and his colleagues seem to achieve dynamism mostly through emptying the substantive elements of their arguments. Their relational approach focuses on the general question of "how" contentious politics influence social life; but this approach has very little to say about more concrete questions like "who", "what", or "when"; all these substantive questions are left to be answered by the specificities of "episodes". As such, all Tilly and his colleagues end up create is a model rather than a theory.

Finally, after reading the section on democratization -where I felt most at home-, I started to doubt the novelty of Tilly and his colleagues' dynamic approach. Tilly et al. criticize the previous research on democratization for focusing on conditions rather than mechanisms. They then offer a dynamic account of democratization with mechanisms operating on three domains: public politics, inequality, and networks of trust. Yet it seems to me that these three domains have already been identified by the current literature on democratization. Moore's (1966) classic book illustrates the changing public politics as a result of changing economic conditions; Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) argue that the central dilemma of a capitalist economic development -increasing inequality between the capitalist and labor classes- was the primary cause of the development of democracy in the Western world; and finally Lipset (1959) and others contend that rising civic virtues as a result of educational and demographic improvements, which alter existing relations of trust, play an important role in democratization. Tilly and his colleagues might still criticize these accounts for being partial. Yet in this case, what we need would be a synthesis of some current research, rather than a novel approach which they try to develop.

sElkiRk NeW York is the sure-fire
way of reasoning beyond the rural New York Robitussin-induced
hangovers which preside indefatigably
in South Fallsburg New York the place-setting
for an underrated little boy named Alouicious
aced all the Latin exams then moved on to French and
never learned what it was
to live
by golly this is a great book!

This book deals with one of the most imposing and intrinsically important chapters in the social history of the antebellum North - the protracted struggle against tenancy by residents of the great manors of New York State's Hudson River Valley. This struggle remained one of the most visible and absorbing dramas of the early nineteenth century, commanding extensive attention from newspapers and politicians alike. The episode derived its significance from its obvious connection to one of the salient social and political issues of that predominantly rural world - the connection between land-holding and citizenship. Before it concluded, the anti-rent struggle became linked to a stunningly broad array of other reform efforts. In the course of relating this story, Huston tells us new things about the evolution of the concept of "free labor," the interaction between elite and popular values and between urban and rural life, voters and politicians, and among social conditions, ideology, and mass action.

Not content with all this, Huston goes significantly further, tracing in detail (but with great economy of language) the complex ways in which that struggle influenced and was influenced by the evolution of party politics from the 1830s down through the 1850s. This study refuses to treat party politics either as tangential to the social concerns and actions of voters or as a mere reflection of them. Instead, the author shows us both how Whigs, Democrats, and eventually Republicans felt compelled to respond to the anti-renter challenge in different ways (in accordance with their own very different agendas) and how the particular nature of those responses then influenced the ideology and practice of the anti-renter struggle itself. The result is a fine case study in the way that partisan ideologies can be shaped by developments within society at large and how politics can, in turn, help alter the course of social movements.

The book's introduction situates it effectively both in the history of its time and in the modern historiography of the early and antebellum American republic. It also lays out the author's specific argument with admirable clarity. The first few chapters then carefully, even meticulously, portray the changing nature of economy, society, and political culture in the Hudson Valley from the eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, dealing successfully along the way with pattern of property ownership, crop cultivation, market fluctuations, and gendered patterns of family work and rights. I was especially happy with the author's treatment of the knotty subject of small producers' attitude toward market production, a subject about which historians, sociologists, and economists have wrangled for many years.

Perhaps more impressive is the book's depiction of the evolving relationship between landlord and tenant. Huston's treatment of the nature and meaning of deference in this connection is extraordinarily subtle. The manuscript avoids a tendency common among social historians to deduce from the existence of relative social peace in a given period the existence of general contentment and even multilateral ideological consensus. Huston shows us something quite different: the presence of contrasting values and assumptions that are masked in good times by social conventions and yield social explosion only when a changing context turn such latent differences into sharp and unavoidable conflicts of practical interest.

The middle of the book gives us an equally deft, nuanced, and subtle mapping of the stages of growth and development through which tenant resistance to landlord exactions passed after about 1820, from incremental shifts in individual behavior to the initiation and differentiation of forms of mass action. Tenant outlooks are studied and evaluated with great sensitivity but without a hint of romanticism. They appear here as neither anti-capitalist stalwarts nor as Rockefellers-in-embryo. Instead, Prof. Huston presents them (accurately, in my view) as members of a "Janus-faced" group of small producers rooted in the market economy and necessarily accepting of its general contours but simultaneously driven by their particular situations and values to resist specific dictates of the marketplace. This understanding also helps Huston account for both the tenants' ability to connect to many other protest movements of the day while remaining deaf and blind to the claims of others -- thus "excluding" women, the propertyless, Indians, and African Americans from the circle to whom their sympathies extend.

The last few chapters of the book bring the story to resolution, presenting an outcome in which the tenants' central aim (the overturning of the landlords' property titles) is unfulfilled even as most tenants did progress toward the sought-after status of independent yeomen by other means. The landlord class, meanwhile, gradually ceased to exist as a distinct social formation. These chapters also round out the author's argument about the relationship between the anti-rent movement and antebellum politics. Especially noteworthy here is the treatment of the interaction between the liberal wing of the Whig party (led in New York and nationally by William H. Seward) and the anti-rent movement. This is a subject of transcendent importance, not least because this was the political current that pioneered the shift from a semi-Hamiltonian form of capitalist politics that long dominated (and hobbled) the Whig party to the much more democratic form finally embodied in the Republican party by 1860. The author plausibly suggests that the Seward-ites' evolution was influenced by their protracted encounter with the anti-renters.

This book is based on extensive primary research, particularly in manuscript collections, manuscript and published census data, and newspaper files (which historians of this period recognize to be one of the most important sources for the investigation of subjects such as this one). The manuscript itself is exceedingly well organized, tightly written, and clear and effective in its argumentation. Throughout, the author has successfully avoided the twin dangers that confront the writer of a first book - either to exaggerate the import of one's subject and oversell the larger meaning of one's thesis, or to seek refuge from criticism precisely by muting the thesis and leaving the subject's place in history and historiography under-attended.

Based upon other positive reviews I had high hopes for this book being informative, but it bases its data more on speculation than on fact. When this book was first written at the time of the "revolution" (in 1979), the author wrote that he had heard that Israeli soldiers were part of the Shah's defense forces in attacks against anti-Shah rioters. But twenty years later by the time of this 2001 re-publication, the author had not been able to ascertain that Israeli units had indeed been part of the Shah's defense forces -- speculation on rumor, but no determinable fact, although the anti-Shah forces had twenty years to comb through Iranian documents. As the author presents a thin-bone background to the theology of Shi'ism, a reader is left powerfully hungry in looking for some 'meatiness' to the author's explanations. Although this book is based upon four lectures that the author gave shortly after the 1979 revolution, the author rambles about in trying to make some coherent story. The author explains that the Shiite are split between two schools of thought, the Usuli and the Akhbaris, as to whether or not modern Shiites can "engage in independent reasoning with respect to legal questions" in the absence of the Hidden Imam. The author examines this issue as it underpins the development of Ayatollah Khomeini's rebellion against the Shah: Khomeini argued that Shiite imams needed to take an active role in fomenting Islamic rebellion against the pro-secular Shah, rather than remaining passive. The author all too briefly notes one of the imams' complaints against the Shah: that he was taking mosque-controlled lands and selling it to private individuals and thereby curtailing their income from those properties. The author does not hide his pro-Shiite faith. In response to one question asked of the author in 1979 as to whether or not he agreed that: "If national boundaries were taken away....the differences between Sunni and Shi'i would disappear in one instant", the author replied back then: "Very definitely." However, twenty years later, by 2001 the author apparently had had a good dressing down by his Shi'i superiors and had to add a corrective footnote: "the differences themselves are deep-rooted and ultimately irreducible" (pg. 81). This is not a book to read to learn about Shi'ism. It is more of a television "talking heads" presentation based from several public lectures; a lot of polemics, but short on fact regarding riot casualties. It barely rates being worthwhile for reading in understanding how the anti-Shah movement developed. It is barely worth reading for a background 'feel' as to why religious leaders (imams) should be the only ruling leaders of an Islamic government (mujtahid); the people may vote for only those candidates who have prior approval from the imams and who toe the Shi'i theology. This isn't a textbook, it is more of a compilation of "off the cuff" extemporaneous remarks in a lecture hall. Okay for a novice just starting to explore this topic, but read it at the library before buying it.

Expect to be challenged, these are as exciting as history lectures can be. Delivered at the time of the Revolution in Iran they provide a critique, explanation, and support for Khomeini's revolution. Discussion and questions are reported after each lecture and four well selected short translations from Khomeini and Shariati are appended.

Lectures are concise summaries and opinion regarding each topic: "Iran and Shi'ism", "Imam Khomeini: the Embodiment of a Tradition", "Islam as Ideology" (on Shariati);and "The Year of Revolution".

Perhaps because the viewpoint is so different from the media and most staid academic treatments, and enthused by the spirit of the moment, the reader is engaged and interested. (Despite minor changes with republication, this book remains a work from 1979.)

Algar makes Iranian Islam and Khomeini central to the dramatic and important revolution that haunts us still. U.S. and Israeli interests were upset, and Muslim countries at the time neither understood nor supported the revolution. Western, and especially American media traumatized by the Embassy takeover and the `loss' of the Shah as anti Communist and supplier of oil, never came close to accuracy or understanding. Labels and stereotypes from them still dominate most works on the subject.

Since the revolution most academic explanations have been at a loss about how to treat the "religious" factor and the improbable success of the revolution. Neither political pundits nor academics can help but be embarrassed by the bias and shallowness of most of their work. Yet if Directors today are still having immense problems trying to do a full length movie on Ataturk - highly emotional after 60 years - they could not even dream of a time when one could be done on Khomeini.(The short biography by the History channel is tolerable for the time being as an introduction but still shallow.)

This book is a great place to start wrestling with the significance of the immediate revolution, the role of Shi'ism and Khomeini, the sociology of human spirit that created the people's revolution that is not to be explained by conspiracy or military takeover but rather success of a largely unarmed revolution against the 2nd greatest and most modern army in the Middle East of its time. Like it or not, this is a book that is a "must read" on many levels.

Sounds very one-sided; has anyone else read this book? Is there a non-biased view of the Wise Use movement?

Antitoxics activist Paula Siemers remembers the night two men attacked and knifed her on a Cincinnati street near her home, following earlier incidents of harassment in which she'd been stoned and her house set on fire... "After they cut my throat they poured water in it from the river and said, 'Now you'll have something to sue about,'" says Stephanie McGuire, an activist who was raped and tortured by three men in camouflage after she protested water pollution on the Fenholloway River... "We think it was murder," says a friend of Leroy Jackson, a Native American environmentalist whose body was found by the side a New Mexico highway several days before he was scheduled to fly to Washington to testify against clear-cut logging on the Navajo reservation... "I was driving home from a concert and saw a glow in the mist. By the time I got to my house a mile and a half in from the highway it was burned to the ground," recalls Greenpeace USA's toxics coordinator Pat Costner of the arson fire that destroyed her home... "We were told if we killed any of them there was $40,000 that was there to defend us in court or to help us get away," says Ed Knight, an ex-logger and Hell's Angel describing how he was hired to lie in ambush with an Uzi, waiting to shoot Earth Firsters in the California woods... And on and on the stories go, told in crystal clear prose, documented with footnotes abundant, by this veteran journalist and private investigator, David Helvarg. Had I come across this book before reading "Toxic Sludge is Good for You" and "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future," these stories would seem less credible, but the vast accumulation of evidence supporting corporate violence against ordinary citizens and envrionmentalists is now beyond dispute. This bafflingly unavailable book is ESSENTIAL READING for anyone attempting to understand the environmental movement and its challenges.

This book was well written and thorough. It expresses the need of activism and tolerance amongst homosexuals. It tells of how rights for gays and discrimination has not yet reached an adequate level.

It encourages readers to participate and venture forth in lifting the the discriminatory ideas of homosexuality and the lives of gay men and women.

Though I felt that some of the writing was a bit too technical, and not personal enough, I benefitted from the realism and expression put forth in the book. In summary this book reflects views of pro rights and the ability to function normally and be accepting of homosexuals in the community.