Reform, Resistance, and Revolution

In this essay, I begin with the US case, then turn to the Arab world, and then look at global trends. All three books touch on the ways in which inequality creates and constrains options for mobilization. They focus on how people around the world engage in collective action to advance claims of liberation, equality, and justice. But they also caution that true revolutionary progress is undermined by two major forces: oppressive inertia of systemic economic exploitation and, in the United States, racism, both of which undermine or reverse meaningful breakthroughs.