Activism Inc.: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics in America and The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle

Abstract

Activism Inc.: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics in America. By Dana R. Fisher. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. 168p. $24.95 cloth. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. By T. V. Reed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 362p. $74.95 cloth, $24.95 paper. These two new books bring welcome perspectives to the study of social movements in America. Reed considers the art of collective action: in terms of both the creative repertoire of activists responding to evolving social and political contexts and the cultural arts that are invoked by and associated with social movements. Fisher's book, meanwhile, sheds light on a second dimension of collective action: the nationwide grassroots canvassing organizations that collect donations and [ostensibly] inform concerned citizens about progressive issues. At first glance, the two books seem to be speaking to aspects of mobilization that are worlds apart. However, their differences help to bring a fuller understanding of the operational field in which social movements are sustained or wither.