The Global Activist's Manual
Local Ways to Change the World
Mike Prokosch and Laura Raymond
April 2002
ISBN: 1560254017
The Global Activist's Manual is a guide to transforming the corporate globalization movement. Three dozen authors look beyond the spectacular shutdowns and protests to introduce the reader to farmers in Iowa, industrial workers in Tennessee, and anti-sweatshop activists in Maine who are connecting global injustices to the issues in their own front yards. The authors range from movement "stars" to the unsung heroes who are challenging the world's largest corporations.
Global organizing is local organizing. Since Seattle, global and local activists have joined forces to protest the prison-industrial complex, corporate campaign financing and clear-cut logging. Case studies describe how people across the country are "localizing globalization" while working for labor rights, immigrant rights or the environment.
Students and teachers can use these case studies as material for classroom analysis. Activists will find practical organizing ideas supplemented by a short how-to section on effective media work, fundraising and organizing. For the general reader, the book ends with a "yellow pages" appendix of the many causes in the globalization movement, including contacts, websites, phone numbers and addresses.
The introduction is by the bestselling anti-sweatshop writer Naomi Klein. Protest photos, cartoons and outrageous quotes by world economic leaders provide an ironic running commentary to the text.
What readers are saying
"Got the globalization blues? Read this savvy guide to global activism and read it today. It could change your life and, believe it or not, help you make history."
--Charles Derber, Corporation Nation
"Want to know how to organize a speaking tour for a foreign guest? Anxious to learn about building coalitions with disparate communities, and the pitfalls you might encounter? Curious to know the history of nonviolent direct action and its importance today? This book has the answers, and in providing them it reveals an extraordinarily diverse and strategically minded social movement."
--YES! magazine
About the Authors
Mike Prokosch is a graphic artist who directed New England organizing for the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES) from 1986 to 1998. He now coordinates the globalization program at United for a Fair Economy, the national economic-justice group in Boston, MA.
Laura Raymond is an activist in the globalization movement and in prison reform, and lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
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