All the Power: Revolution Without Illusion (Punk Planet Books) (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: tribe has always been, college activism, North American, Sheridan County, Smells Like Teen Spirit (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An ambitious, accessible mix of history, autobiography, and how-to-manual, this "anti-manifesto" challenges popular concepts of radical activism. Long-time inner-city organizer and punk rabble-rouser Mark Andersen takes aim at the illusions that tend to keep North American radicals self-satisfied but ineffective. A whirlwind tour across decades—through punk and student activism, identity and lifestyle politics, animal rights, armed struggle, patriotism, globalization, and beyond—this book seeks a radicalism that is both rigorously self-critical and genuinely populist. Leaping from agrarian socialist experiments of the early twentieth century to embattled 1960s streets to the fiercely independent punk underground of the 1980s and ’90s to the present-day global-justice movement, All the Power suggests how the seemingly most idealistic of enterprises—revolution—might be practically accomplished.

From the Publisher

ALL THE POWER is an "anti-manifesto" from Washington DC's leading political activist, offering a contemporary update of Saul Alinsky's RULES FOR RADICALS for the launch of the new Akashic imprint, PUNK PLANET BOOKS.

With a preface by Jennifer Baumgardner, author of MANIFESTA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future

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Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Akashic Books (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888451726
• ISBN-13: 978-1888451726
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #849,140 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading, September 3, 2007

By	Jessica Land - See all my reviews

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.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars poorly thought out and badly written, July 6, 2008

By	David DN (Haight Ashbury, Earth) - See all my reviews

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.

5 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars errrrr, March 28, 2005

By	"frodo" - See all my reviews

"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.