Summer Reading List: 17 Revolutionary Books
One observation I’ve made is that countries tend to have their preferred season for rising up. In Ukraine, quite maddeningly, it is the dead of winter. I still remember freezing with so many others on Kyiv’s Maidan during the Orange Revolution in November 2004, then seeing so many of my friends freezing the same way on the same place a decade later.
We Americans, at least in this one respect, are far more sensible. We protest when it’s warm. From the first signing of the Declaration of Independence and Freedom Summer to the Stonewall Uprising and Martin Luther King’s famous March on Washington, we wait till the weather heats up to go out into the streets.
With tensions in the country running high we can expect our fair share of unrest this summer. Unfortunately, most of these will have more passion than good sense. Protestors rarely learn from those who preceded them, which is a shame. There is no shortage of accumulated wisdom. With that in mind, here are 17 books that are worth learning from.
Blueprint For Revolution by Srdja Popović
I first became aware of Srdja’s work during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. While the driving force behind the protests was a youth movement called “Pora,” it was widely known that they had received training and advice from a Serbian group, “Otpor,” that had played a similar role in the revolution that overthrew Slobodan Milošević
Srdja led that revolution and then, after serving four years in the Serbian parliament, established the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) which has been supporting pro-democracy activists ever since. From Myanmar to Zimbabwe, Sudan to Venezuela and everywhere in between, CANVAS has been there.
Over the years, I have gotten to know Srjda well and he has become a friend. This book is not only an incredible primer on what actually works, it gives a healthy dose of his personality, which somehow manages to be insightful and hilarious at the same time. Reading this book is like getting to know him, which I can tell you from experience, is a privilege.
A Force More Powerful by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall
This book is the ultimate reference to successful political movements in the 20th century. Starting with the massive strikes against the Tsar in St. Petersburg after “Bloody Sunday” in 1905, all the way up to Srdja’s “Bulldozer Revolution” in 2000 and everything in between, A Force More Powerful covers it all with impressive depth and breadth.
Most books about movements focus on a single figure or a single approach—Say Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights in America, or Gandhi and Indian Independence. Often, the authors try to extrapolate general principles from those events, which is often problematic. The enormous scope of this book gives you a much broader perspective.
The core thesis authors try to establish is that nonviolence is “a force more powerful” than violence which, at the time they wrote it, was fairly controversial. More recent work has bolstered the argument though.
Why Civil Resistance Works by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan
While Ackerman and DuVall give an impressive historical account of nonviolent resistance, Chenoweth and Stephan add academic rigor. They analyzed over 300 resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 and found that nonviolent efforts were roughly twice as likely to succeed (about half of nonviolent revolutions vs. a quarter for violent ones).
To be frank, most of the academic “research” around activism is truly horrid, with incompetent scholars cherry picking historical references to support their preferred narrative. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between, so a study of this breadth and rigor is truly welcome.
Another great thing about this book is, for all of its scholarship, it is surprisingly readable, giving interesting narratives of specific campaigns that illustrate their larger point—that it is participation that wins revolutions. The more people you can get involved, the better off you’ll be and the more likely you can get people from the regime to defect.
Small Acts Of Resistance by Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson
Some books are impressive, some are interesting and others are informative. This one is all that and also just plain FUN! It shows how ordinary people, through creative and courageous nonviolent acts, have challenged oppression and sparked change around the world
From the “walking protests” during Poland’s Solidarity movement to the incredible story of how Hitler was foiled by nonviolent protests on the Rosenstrasse, it tells the stories through dozens of short vignettes that are at once inspiring and entertaining.
This is one of those books that’s great to read just a few pages at a time. That way, you can savor it all summer long!
Walking With the Wind by John Lewis
In this compelling autobiography, civil rights icon and legendary congressman John Lewis traces his past from a childhood as a dirt-poor sharecropper’s son, to leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He gives incredibly compelling first-hand accounts of the Freedom Rides, the Selma to Montgomery marches, Bloody Sunday, where Lewis was brutally beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and his rise to Congress.
The book is incredibly candid about not only the incredible victories in securing civil rights, but also his doubts and frustrations. Perhaps most importantly, it shows how important it is for revolutionaries to also take responsibility for governance after the major battles have been won. It’s rare that you find a book that’s so interesting, instructive and inspiring.
Even among the heroes of the Civil Rights movement John Lewis stands out as a paragon of moral courage and common sense.If you’d like to explore Lewis’s life further, John Meacham’s biography, His Truth Is Marching On, is also worth checking out.
Devil In The Grove by Gilbert King
Thurgood Marshall had such a legendary career as a Supreme Court Justice that his importance to the civil rights movement is often overlooked. Marshall worked for decades to painstakingly dismantle Jim Crow and put civil rights on a solid legal footing. It is rare that such brilliance, courage and dignity can reside in the same man.
This Pulitzer Prize winning book does an amazing job encapsulating Marshall’s career through the story of the Groveland Boys—four young Black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1949 Florida. What sticks out is not only the physical danger that Marshall exposed himself to, but the power that his intellectual presence had on southern segregationists, who had to reckon one of the greatest legal minds of the twentieth century in black skin.
Another book that covers similar ground, but from a legal expert’s perspective is Root and Branch by Rawn James Jr., which focuses not only on Marshall’’s career but also his mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston and the role the NAACP played in the effort to end segregation in schools that culminated with the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Freedom Summer by Doug McAdam
This book is a sociological analysis of the 1964 campaign in Mississippi, where hundreds of mostly white college students joined Black activists to challenge segregation and register Black voters. Using interviews and data, McAdam examines how the experience of risking one’s safety for a cause reshaped the lives, values, and careers of those involved.
Many participants emerged more politically engaged and socially conscious, with a lasting commitment to activism that would go on to reshape the 1960s and 70s. Veterans of Freedom summer would go on to take leading roles in movements against the war, promoting the environments, women’s and gay rights, labor and racial justice.
Similar to Why Civil Resistance Works, McAdam applied rigorous analysis to decades of data, and also went back and conducted dozens of interviews with the original participants. The result is an incredibly insightful view into social activism, especially regarding social ties and long-term effects on the activists themselves.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. by Clayborne Carson
The term “autobiography” is somewhat of a misnomer in this case, because the book is actually an edited version of King’s writings rather than something that the civil rights leader sat down and pieced together himself. Still, Clayborne Carson does such a capable job editing, linking King’s text together with his own thoughts, that it reads almost as if it were a real autobiography.
If your interested in not just the facts of King’s life, but his spirit and motivations, you can do no better than this book. It is not only inspiring and informative, but also a real pleasure to read.
Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela is remembered today as an almost saintly figure, but he began as an angry nationalist. “I was angry at the white man, not at racism,” he writes in Long Walk to Freedom. “While I was not prepared to hurl the white man into the sea, I would have been perfectly happy if he climbed aboard his steamships and left the continent of his own volition.”
Yet he learned over time the value of working with others and the necessity of staying true to his principles, even when they became inconvenient. After he rose to power, he safeguarded the rights of white South Africans as faithfully as he fought for the rights of his own people. This book tells that story. It is a must read.
Biko by Donald Woods
During Mandela’s imprisonment, Stephen Biko emerged as a key leader in the anti-Apartheid movement. Promoting his philosophy of “Black Consciousness,” He believed the first step toward freedom was promoting Black identity, pride, and dignity. “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” was often said.
This book, written by South African journalist Donald Woods, a close friend and ally of Biko, gives a firsthand account of the political climate, police brutality, and media censorship under Apartheid. After Biko’s death, Woods risked his life to expose the truth, eventually fleeing South Africa to publish this book and advocate internationally for justice.
A Woman’s Crusade by Mary Walton
When you think of a powerful social movement, you probably think of something like Black Lives Matter, the struggle for LGBT rights or #MeToo. Or possibly something more historical, like Gandhi in India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa or Martin Luther King in America. However, before any of these came to pass there was the movement to grant women’s suffrage.
A Woman’s Crusade tells the story of Alice Paul, who was perhaps the most important figure in the struggle to win the vote for women. In fact, many of the tactics of the more famous movements that came later were actually first employed by Alice Paul and her compatriots. This is a great book about a chapter in American history that is too often ignored.
Awakening by Nathaniel Frank
The most successful movement in recent history has been the struggle for LGBT rights. After more than a half century of struggle, popular sentiment shifted sharply in favor of same-sex marriage and other protections for LGBTQ couples. Perhaps most surprising, it was a conservative lawyer, Ted Olson, who argued the decisive case in the Supreme Court.
In Awakening, Nathaniel Frank tells the amazing story from start to finish. This book is very well researched, but also highly readable and it covers not only the challenges the movement faced with the establishment, but also the conflicts and debates within the movement itself.
If you’re looking for additional perspective on the LGBTQ movement you can also check out Forcing The Spring by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jo Becker, which explores the broader political context of the struggle for marriage equality.
The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson
The Tea Party has undoubtedly been one of the most powerful political movements of our time. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, it quickly became a force to be reckoned with in American society, driving policy decisions through effective campaigning at a grassroots level. Few political movements have won such pervasive influence so quickly.
Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, both academics, spent a year researching the Tea Party, analyzing demographics and conducting extensive interviews with activists. The result is a penetrating study that breaks stereotypes and brings understanding to this quintessential 21st century phenomenon.
Cascades by Greg Satell
Okay, so this is obviously a shameless plug. But honestly, what revolutionary reading list would be complete without Cascades? If you like my work, you’ll love this book! It’s the result of 15 years of studying movements, transformation, and change, focused on how those same principles can help organizations compete and lead in a fast-moving world.
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So that’s my list for this summer. If you would like to add a suggestion of your own, please feel free to do that in the comments section.
– Greg
