October 1, 2018
Nation political reporter Guttenplan details a cautiously optimistic prognosis for a progressive American future, grounded in a resurgence of populism and inclusive, intersectional, anticorporate “majoritarian revolt.” Guttenplan profiles rising stars of progressive activism, including labor activist Jane McAlevey, Mississippi mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, anti-XL pipeline activist and Nebraska Democratic Party leader Jane Kleeb, and several charismatic senior members of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. These chapters recount their subjects’ personal and political histories, contextualize their successes and failures, and share insights about how to continue to mobilize people for change. The profiles are smoothly interspersed with chapters analyzing moments in American history when the needs of everyday people came into conflict with moneyed interests and existing power structures and “our ancestors confronted and overcame the dominant oligarchy of their day,” such as the Whiskey Rebellion, the rise of an inclusive abolitionist movement in the Lincoln years, and the successful development of union organizing and sit-down protests in the time of FDR’s New Deal. Guttenplan calls on readers to recommit to the concept of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Progressives will find this a hopeful and inspiring book.