The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century

by Carne Ross

Overview

The Leaderless Revolution explains why our government institutions are inadequate to the task of solving major problems and offers a set of steps we can take to create lasting and workable solutions ourselves. In taking these steps, we can not only reclaim the control we have lost, but also a sense of meaning and community so elusive in the current circumstance. In a day and age when things feel bleak and beyond our control, this powerful and personal book will revive one's sense of hope that a better, more just and equitable order lies within our reach-if only we are willing to grasp it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101568156
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/29/2011
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	320 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

 Carne Ross lives in New York City.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for THE LEADERLESS REVOLUTION by Carne Ross:

"An impassioned, idealistic critique of the state of global politics and the deepening rift between those with power and those without."
—The Guardian

"So bold, so full of incontestable truths and overwhelming convictions, that it should be read by every diplomat, politician and thinking citizen with the courage to pick it up."
—John le Carré

“It’s been a long time since I’ve read a more interesting, informing and inspiring book than ‘The Leaderless Revolution."
—Bill Moyers

“Intriguing … the author provides many fascinating personal insights into the crises not only in Iraq, but also Afghanistan, Kosovo, Mauretania and Sudan.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

So bold, so full of incontestable truths and overwhelming convictions, that it should be read by every diplomat, politician and thinking citizen with the courage to pick it up.” -John Le Carré

“It’s been a long time since I’ve read a more interesting, informing and inspiring book than The Leaderless Revolution." -Bill Moyers

"Carne Ross takes up where Naomi Klein, Noreena Hertz, and others left off. This is an impassioned, idealistic critique of the state of global politics and the deepening rift between those with power and those without." -The Guardian (London)

“Intriguing…the author provides many fascinating personal insights into the crises not only in Iraq, but also Afghanistan, Kosovo, Mauretania and Sudan.” -Kirkus

From the Publisher

A personal assessment of the transforming power of consultative democracy in the coming century. Political advisor Ross (Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite, 2007, etc.) looks back at his disaffection with the British diplomatic service and resignation in the wake of the exposure, and subsequent suicide, of the government's top weapons-inspection scientist David Kelly. He had been intimately involved with Iraq sanctions and the buildup to war, as well as many other conflict situations, and he portrays the violence resulting from official "group think" with the Milgram experiment's proof of people's unquestioning potential for cruelty. The author provides many fascinating personal insights into the crises not only in Iraq, but also Afghanistan, Kosovo, Mauretania and Sudan. While many will be drawn to this aspect of his account, Ross' concern is not the past but the lessons to be applied now. In his view, the nation-state basis for the international diplomatic order has been undermined by the increasing power of particular interests acting through global institutions. Writing that society requires "authority in order to enjoy peace and stability," Ross questions authority itself by pointing to some of the worst outrages in human history--e.g., Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union. In democracies as well, he writes, "the very rules and institutions established to protect us in fact do the opposite," mainly because people tend to abdicate responsibility when they empower elected representatives to act on their behalf. Ross is an advocate for deliberative democracy--typified by Gandhi's nonviolent movement against the British in the 1920s and '30s--which he distinguishes from terrorism, anarchism and representative government. Intriguing but not entirely convincing. Stay tuned to see if the author's contentions play out in the next decade or so.

Kirkus Reviews