The Defiant: Protest Movements in Post-Liberal America

by Dawson Barrett

Overview

In the tradition of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, an engaging account of the last half-century of political discontent

The history of the United States is a history of oppression and inequality, as well as raucous opposition to the status quo. It is a history of slavery and child labor, but also the protest movements that helped end those institutions. Protesters have been the driving force of American democracy, from the expansion of voting rights and the end of segregation laws, to minimum wage standards and marriage equality.

In this exceptional new book, Dawson Barrett calls our attention to the post-1960s period, in which US economic, cultural, and political elites turned the tide against the protest movement gains of the previous forty years and reshaped the ability of activists to influence the political process.

For much of the last half-century, policymakers in both major US political parties have been guided by the “pro-business” tenets of neoliberalism. Dubbed “casino capitalism” by its critics, this economy has ravaged the environment, expanded the for-profit war and prison industries, and built a global assembly line rooted in sweatshop labor, while more than doubling the share of American wealth and income held by the country’s richest 1 percent.

The Defiant explores the major policy shifts of this new Gilded Age through the lens of dissent—through the picket lines, protest marches, and sit-ins that greeted them at every turn. Barrett documents these clashes at neoliberalism’s many points of impact, moving from the Arizona wilderness, to Florida tomato fields, to punk rock clubs in New York and California—and beyond. He takes readers right up to the present day with an epilogue tracing the Trump administration’s strategies and policy proposals, and the myriad protests they have sparked.

Capturing a wide range of protest movements in action—from environmentalists’ tree-sits to Iraq War peace marches to Occupy Wall Street, #BlackLivesMatter, and more—The Defiant is a gripping analysis of the profound struggles of our times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479808656
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	05/08/2018
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dawson Barrett is Assistant Professor of US History at Del Mar College in Texas. He is the author of Teenage Rebels: Successful High School Activists, from the Little Rock Nine to the Class of Tomorrow (Microcosm Publishing, 2015).

Table of Contents

Prologue: Wisconsin, 2011 1

Introduction: The American Protest Tradition 7

1 The Forests for the Trees: Neoliberalism and the Environment 25

2 Rebel Spaces: Youth, Art, and Countercultures 55

3 Links in the Chain: Workers' Rights Networks and Globalization 77

4 Invasion and Occupation: Fighting the "War on Terror" 101

5 Eviction and Occupation: Austerity and the Global Recession 137

Epilogue: Kennedy International Airport, 2017 165

Acknowledgments 173

Notes 177

Bibliography 215

Index 227

About the Author 233

Editorial Reviews

"Histories of our long era of neoliberal/conservative ascendancy have tended to overlook or at least to undervalue stories of resistance to that new order of things. The great virtue of Dawson Barrett’s book is that it helps right that balance. The Defiant encompasses a great range of protest movements.

"

Labor

"In The Defiant Dawson Barrett offers a sweeping narrative of protest movements in the neo-liberal era United States… by routing The Defiant’s narrative of the era through unruly protest, rather than through ideological projects of the ruling class, Barrett has performed his own intellectual act of defiance. To be sure, he freely acknowledges that during the neoliberal years protest has often failed to win specific gains, but, he argues, protest remains necessary even when things are not going well because, without it, things would quickly get much worse."

Journal of American History

"This is a short survey of post-1960s leftist social movements in the US. It is part straightforward scholarly study and part unabashed movement manual. … An informative read."

CHOICE

"The Defiant is both a jargon-free primer on the politics of neoliberalism and a critical consideration of the panoply of social movements from punk squatters to immigrant farmworkers and anti-imperialist veterans that have resisted neoliberal threats to justice and well-being at every turn. It is a valuable contribution to the urgent task of mapping and assessing the fragmented post-1960s American Left."

Andrew Cornell

"Accessible and clearly argued throughout, an excellent primer on the history of American neoliberalism and those who have found ways to challenge that history."

Terrorism and Political Violence

"Dawson Barrett has written an important book for our times. The Defiant reads like a continuation of Howard Zinns A Peoples History of the United States, picking up where Zinn left off. Anyone interested in the resistance that led to 'The Resistance' today should read this book."

Stephen Duncombe

"Can insurgency from below change American politics? The question has never been more important, and Dawson Barrett helps us to answer that question with a penetrating series of case studies of contemporary protests from the margins of American society."

Frances Fox Piven

"Here is an indispensable manual for the defiant onesthe organizers and the activists, the rebels and resisters, the dissidents and the disobedientand, in fact, for anyone paying attention to the gathering catastrophe, dreaming of a more just and joyful world, and willing to step into history now as an actor on behalf of humanity. The Defiant is a book of the resistancewhere to find it and how to organize it. Its an antidote to cynicism and despair, a map toward building our own agency, and a crucial companion to carry along to the militant blockade or the picket line, into the classroom or onto the barricades."

Bill Ayers

"

Histories of our long era of neoliberal/conservative ascendancy have tended to overlook or at least to undervalue stories of resistance to that new order of things. The great virtue of Dawson Barrett’s book is that it helps right that balance. The Defiant encompasses a great range of protest movements.

"

Labor

"Here is an indispensable manual for the defiant ones—the organizers and the activists, the rebels and resisters, the dissidents and the disobedient—and, in fact, for anyone paying attention to the gathering catastrophe, dreaming of a more just and joyful world, and willing to step into history now as an actor on behalf of humanity.
The Defiant is a book of the resistance—where to find it and how to organize it. It’s an antidote to cynicism and despair, a map toward building our own agency, and a crucial companion to carry along to the militant blockade or the picket line, into the classroom or onto the barricades."-Bill Ayers,author of Fugitive Days , Public Enemy , and Demand the Impossible

"Can insurgency from below change American politics? The question has never been more important, and Dawson Barrett helps us to answer that question with a penetrating series of case studies of contemporary protests from the margins of American society."-Frances Fox Piven,author of Challenging Authority and Poor Peoples' Movements

"Dawson Barrett has written an important book for our times. The Defiant reads like a continuation of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States , picking up where Zinn left off. Anyone interested in the resistance that led to 'The Resistance' today should read this book."-Stephen Duncombe,New York University

" The Defiant is both a jargon-free primer on the politics of neoliberalism and a critical consideration of the panoply of social movements – from punk squatters to immigrant farmworkers and anti-imperialist veterans – that have resisted neoliberal threats to justice and well-being at every turn. It is a valuable contribution to the urgent task of mapping and assessing the fragmented post-1960s American Left." -Andrew Cornell,author of Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the 20th Century

"Its...strength lies in the author's ability to weave policies and actions across political parties to reveal how neoliberalism echoes the Gilded Age with the same predictable, at times, devastating outcomes...A perfectly timed history of resistance.- Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/15/2018
This new book from Barrett (history, Del Mar Coll.; Teenage Rebels) purports to examine protest movements since the 1970s, but its real strength lies in the author's ability to weave policies and actions across political parties to reveal how neoliberalism (or postliberalism as Barrett labels it) echoes the Gilded Age with the same predictable, at times, devastating outcomes. In Barrett's recounting of the George W. Bush era, we see history repeating itself. From welfare rollbacks under Bill Clinton to deportations during Barack Obama's first term, Barrett finds much to protest under democratic administrations as well. The second chapter explores how 1980s punk rock culture grew in reaction to the social and economic conservativism of the Reagan era, yet Barrett's narrative of two specific punk clubs reveals fundamental compromises that seemingly undermine their role in the resistance. Later chapters describe student protests and boycotts that had a positive impact on the conditions of Mexican farm workers, and how the Bush administration attempted to cast protesters as traitors. The epilog, which opens with the airport protests following Trump's executive order halting refugees from entering the United States, now feels like an introduction to the country's next chapter. VERDICT A perfectly timed history of resistance.—Bart Everts, Rutgers Univ.-Camden Lib., NJ

Library Journal

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