From her perspective as both participant and observer, Barbara Epstein examines the nonviolent direct action movement which, inspired by the civil rights movement, flourished in the United States from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. Disenchanted with the politics of both the mainstream and the organized left, and deeply committed to forging communities based on shared values, activists in this movement developed a fresh, philosophy and style of politics that shaped the thinking of a new generation of activists. Driven by a vision of an ecologically balanced, nonviolent, egalitarian society, they engaged in political action through affinity groups, made decisions by consensus, and practiced mass civil disobedience. The nonviolent direct action movement galvanized originally in opposition to nuclear power, with the Clamshell Alliance in New England and then the Abalone Alliance in California leading the way. Its influence soon spread to other activist movements—for peace, non-intervention, ecological preservation, feminism, and gay and lesbian rights. Epstein joined the San Francisco Bay Area's Livermore Action Group to protest the arms race and found herself in jail along with a thousand other activists for blocking the road in front of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. She argues that to gain a real understanding of the direct action movement it is necessary to view it from the inside. For with its aim to base society as a whole on principles of egalitarianism and nonviolence, the movement sought to turn political protest into cultural revolution.

Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s

History

Epstein, Barbara

Americas

University of California Press

From her perspective as both participant and observer, Barbara Epstein examines the nonviolent direct action movement which, inspired by the civil rights movement, flourished in the United States from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. Disenchanted with the politics of both the mainstream and the organized left, and deeply committed to forging communities based on shared values, activists in this movement developed a fresh, philosophy and style of politics that shaped the thinking of a new generation of activists. Driven by a vision of an ecologically balanced, nonviolent, egalitarian society, they engaged in political action through affinity groups, made decisions by consensus, and practiced mass civil disobedience. The nonviolent direct action movement galvanized originally in opposition to nuclear power, with the Clamshell Alliance in New England and then the Abalone Alliance in California leading the way. Its influence soon spread to other activist movements―for peace, non-intervention, ecological preservation, feminism, and gay and lesbian rights. Epstein joined the San Francisco Bay Area's Livermore Action Group to protest the arms race and found herself in jail along with a thousand other activists for blocking the road in front of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. She argues that to gain a real understanding of the direct action movement it is necessary to view it from the inside. For with its aim to base society as a whole on principles of egalitarianism and nonviolence, the movement sought to turn political protest into cultural revolution.

Drawing from engrossing survivors' accounts, many never before published, The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943 recounts a heroic yet little-known chapter in Holocaust history. In vivid and moving detail, Barbara Epstein chronicles the history of a Communist-led resistance movement inside the Minsk ghetto, which, through its links to its Belarussian counterpart outside the ghetto and with help from others, enabled thousands of ghetto Jews to flee to the surrounding forests where they joined partisan units fighting the Germans. Telling a story that stands in stark contrast to what transpired across much of Eastern Europe, where Jews found few reliable allies in the face of the Nazi threat, this book captures the texture of life inside and outside the Minsk ghetto, evoking the harsh conditions, the life-threatening situations, and the friendships that helped many escape almost certain death. Epstein also explores how and why this resistance movement, unlike better known movements at places like Warsaw, Vilna, and Kovno, was able to rely on collaboration with those outside ghetto walls. She finds that an internationalist ethos fostered by two decades of Soviet rule, in addition to other factors, made this extraordinary story possible.

The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943: Jewish Resistance and Soviet Internationalism

Europe

How can we understand India today, fifty years after Independence and only months after its nuclear tests outraged the world? The novelist Arundhati Roy has written, specially for this collection, a fierce denunciation of the Indian nuclear program, which serves as an introduction to nine essays on India, all originally published in The New York Review of Books. In this volume, seven distinguished writers offer penetrating insights into the complexities of the subcontinent. Roderick MacFarquhar reflects on the legacy of Empire and Partition, Ian Buruma considers secularism and Indian democracy, Pankaj Mishra remembers life in Benares, and Christopher de Bellaigue writes on a violent Bombay. But the volatile intersections of history, politics, and culture on which they focus haunt Indian literature too, as shown in essays by Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen on Rabindranath Tagore, Hilary Mantel on Rohinton Mistry, and Anita Desai on Indian women's writing.

India: A Mosaic

ROY, ARUNDHATI

Asia

New York Review Books

Your official guide to the fabulous Florida Keys. From the time of Ponce De Leon and over the 500 hundred years since he stepped on solid ground in the Florida Keys, visitors have come first in expeditions and exploration of a wild, natural group of islands totally dependent on natures blue print of the ebb and flow of tides and hurricanes. In the beginning, it was coconuts and mangroves that caused the ultimate firmament of the Florida Keys. Down through thousands of years, hundreds of varieties of fish, amphibians, mammals and reptiles were the original residents, as well as billions of mosquitos, that for hundreds of years kept people at bay. The evolution of the Keys from Flagler’s railroad times, the pineapples plantations, sponging, turtling and commercial fishing has now led to today’s, mostly tamed islands. These islands are now strung together for today’s tourism boom, by 43 bridges on the Overseas Highway to the Florida Keys.

43 Bridges to the Florida Keys

Travel

Epstein, Bob T.

United States

Wild Water Productions Company

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Epstein, Barbara. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Epstein, Barbara

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Epstein, Barbara. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s

Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s

The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943: Jewish Resistance and Soviet Internationalism

India: A Mosaic

43 Bridges to the Florida Keys