Protest Nation

Protest Nation is a dazzling collection of the speeches, letters, broadsides, essays, and manifestos that form the modern-day backbone of the powerful American tradition of activism and struggle. Here are the words-from socialists, feminists, union organizers, civil-rights workers, gay and lesbian activists, and environmentalists-that have been beacons for millions, reaching from the present and going back through decades of radical thinking and movement-building. Brief introductory essays by the editors provide a rich biographical and historical context for the selections, which include a fiery speech by the great socialist orator Eugene Debs, the original Black Panther Party Platform, Harvey Mik's "The Hope Speech," and Peter Singer's astonishing treatise on animal liberation. Protest Nation captures twentieth-century American radical thought and action and will both thrill and inspire twenty-first-century readers.

Timothy Patrick McCarthy is a Lecturer and Director of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a co-editor of The Radical Reader and Prophets of Protest (both published by The New Press). John McMillian is the author of Tom Paine's Children and a co-editor of The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture.