From Publishers Weekly
"Rather than one dominant political voice, one dogma, one party line, we present you with a collision of subjectivities... moments both intimate and public, charged with inspiration, fear, humor, the everyday, and the historic." So begins this 7" 5", b&w photo-studded tour of the global justice movement's many locales and leaderless actors, from a mostly London-based editorial collective that includes an editor of New Internationalist magazine. The book is divided into seven primer-like chapters-"Emergence," "Networks," "Autonomy," "Carnival," "Clandestinity," "Power" and "Walking"-each with a headline-like subtitle (e.g., "Power: building it without taking it"). The book as a whole makes a case for "direct action," or organized resistance to specific policies or decisions, in a manner that owes the most to Gandhi's targeted nonviolence. The book reveals a movement for whom protest is taken to be a more effective political tool than electoral politics, since the latter realm is, in their view, controlled by lobbies for largely profit-based (rather than people-based) interests. In addition to vivid reportage (including terrific action pix) of specific events around the world, numerous voices explain how they built and now maintain their own "affinity groups," or small collectives that operate in their own manners, with representatives sent to larger umbrella organizations. The idea is to show readers how to form their own groups and to convince them to do so. With its on-the-ground documentation of and practical tips for protest, this book makes an ideal companion to more big-picture works like Noreena Hertz's The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy.
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Review
“An authentic document of revolution”—The Times
“This book is essential reading for anyone who cares about our future, and weighs enough to throw at anyone who doesn’t.”—The Independent on Sunday
“This is the first book to truly capture and embody the exuberant creativity and radical intellect of the protest movements.”—Naomi Klein, from the foreword
“This isn’t a book it’s a brick with which to shatter cynicism.”—Luther Blissett
About the Author
Notes from Nowhere is an editorial collective: Katharine Ainger, Graeme Chesters, Tony Credland, John Jordan, Andrew Stern, and Jennifer Whitney are activists and writers, designers, and photographers who were variously involved in the actions in Seattle, documenting movements of the Global South, Reclaim the Streets in the UK, and the Indymedia network.
