Published by Dissent! and Autonomedia
Bob Geldof's appointment as an advisor to the Conservative party seems
to have provoked a further round of disillusionment with the legacy of
the Live8 concerts and the Make Poverty History campaign. It seems
timely for our movement to reassess our protests and mobilisation
against the G8 in Gleneagles last summer. This reassessment will be
aided by the publication of a new book full of first hand accounts by
those more interested in shutting the G8 down than lobbying it.
Edited by a group within Dissent!, the network which coordinated
anti-capitalist resistance to the Summit, Shut Them Down! contains 35
chapters, including a hilarious cartoon, an editors' introduction and
dozens of powerful photographs over 368 pages.
As well as first hand accounts from protestors, there are detailed
accounts of how the various aspects of the mobilisation were
organised, and analysis of the lessons to be learned. Shut Them
Down!'s relevance, however, extends far beyond the Gleneagles
experience; it addresses issues fundamental to anyone involved or
interested in social movements, such as the nature of openness and
'horizontality' and the limits of the 'activist' identity. Most
important of all, Shut Them Down! attempts to pose the question: how
do we take those new worlds we glimpse in these moments and apply them
to the rest of our lives?
Contributors include: Werner Bonefeld, George Caffentzis, Counter-Spin
Collective, The Free Association, The Ginger, John Holloway, Colonel
Klepto and Major Up Evil, Starhawk and Simon Tormey.
Available from Shutthemdown.org for £4.95, €7.50 and US$9.95 plus p&p.
Review copies are available from the editors: editors@shutthemdown.org