Berkeley: The Student Revolt

(Hardback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop!" These fiery words of protest, spoken by M

Reviews

"This is a gripping political history of the Berkeley student movement of the fall of 1964a movement ahead of its time, which reverberates to this day. Hal Draper was both a participant and an influential political mentor to many students in the Free Speech Movement, and in this classic work, he offers unique insights as a lifelong advocate for a thoroughly revolutionary and democratic socialism from below." Samuel Farber, Free Speech Movement activist and author ofCuba Since the Revolution of 1959

"We live in an era in which it is becoming more and more difficult to learn from the lessons of history, especially from a history filled with the spirit of civic engagement, revolt, and a seething desire to struggle over institutions such as higher education, which are crucial to a democracy.Berkeley: The Student Revoltspeaks to a moment in history alive with the spirit of student revolt, outrage over the corporatization and militarization of the university, and deeply aware of the connection between the crisis of the university and its relationship to the crisis of society. This book is both inspiring and informative, moving in its depiction of civil rights, the struggle for academic freedom, the necessity of free speech as a mode of dissent, the refusal to accept the university as a "knowledge industry," and the need to give voice to the students themselves.Berkeley: The Student Revoltspeaks [in] a language of not only critique, the visceral language of protest, but also to a merging of struggle and hope that can serve as invaluable resource for future generations." Henry Giroux, author ofNeoliberalisms War on Higher Education

Hal Drapers book remains the most vivid narrative and incisive analysis of the Free Speech Movement that I know. A profoundly learned Marxist scholar and veteran of the revolutionary socialist movement, he was also a deeply involved participant in the FSM itself. Indeed, Drapers influence led UC President Clark Kerr to call him, hyperbolically, the chief guru of the FSM.Berkeley:The Student Revoltrecommends itself to all those interested in the history of protest and the left in this country, but especially, I think, to the young radicals and socialists who are today immersed in the great multiracial movement against police violence and for fundamental social change.Thomas Harrison, New Politics

Author Bio

The late Hal Draper is the author of the five-volume study of Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (Monthly Review Press) as well as War and Revolution: Lenin and the Myth of Revolutionary Defeatism (Humanities Press) and Berkeley: The New Student Revolt (Grove Press.) He was also a prominent socialist journalist and editor of the journal Labor Action from 1948-1958.

Mario Savio was one of the most famous leaders of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement.