George Katsiaficas

George Katsiaficas wrote books on the global uprising of 1968, Asian uprisings, and European social movements. Together with Kathleen Cleaver, he coedited Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. A longtime activist for peace and justice, he was a student of Herbert Marcuse, whose theories he recently defended from misogynist and untruthful attacks (see his blog post). His website is www.eroseffect.com

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Books by George Katsiaficas

Forewords by George

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Praise

“George Katsiaficas has written a majestic account of political uprisings and social movements in Asia—an important contribution to the literature on both Asian studies and social change that is highly-recommended reading for anyone concerned with these fields of interest. The work is well-researched, clearly-argued, and beautifully written, accessible to both academic and general readers.”  —Prof. Carl Boggs, author of The Crimes of Empire: The History and Politics of an Outlaw Nation

“This book makes a unique contribution to Korean Studies because of its social movements’ prism. It will resonate well in Korea and will also serve as a good introduction to Korea for outsiders. By providing details on 20th century uprisings, Katsiaficas provides insights into the trajectory of social movements in the future.”  —Na Kahn-chae, Director, May 18 Institute, Gwangju, South Korea

“In Asia’s Unknown Uprisings, Katsiaficas continues to develop his unique perspective on social movements that he first enunciated in books on the global insurgency of 1968 and autonomous movements in Europe in the 1970s and 80s. Finally, for the first time in English, we now have a comprehensive overview of the remarkable waves of popular uprisings that have taken place in South Korea in the 20th century. With this volume, Katsiaficas challenges the Eurocentrism of social movement scholarship and provides a radical reappraisal of the role of mass popular uprisings in contemporary history.”  —Eddie Yuen, co-editor of Confronting Capitalism: Dispatches from a Global Movement

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Praise

“Through Katsiaficas’s study of Asia’s uprisings and rebellions, readers get a glimpse of the challenge to revolutionaries to move beyond representative democracy and to reimagine and reinvent democracy. This book shows the power of rebellions to change the conversation.”
—Grace Lee Boggs, activist and coauthor of Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century

“In Asia’s Unknown Uprisings, George Katsiaficas inspires readers with an exciting yet scholarly examination of the rise and interlinking of mass revolutionary waves of struggle.”
—Bill Fletcher Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided

“George Katsiaficas has written a majestic account of political uprisings and social movements in Asia—an important contribution to the literature on both Asian studies and social change that is highly-recommended reading for anyone concerned with these fields of interest. The work is well-researched, clearly-argued, and beautifully written, accessible to both academic and general readers.”
—Carl Boggs, author of The Crimes of Empire: The History and Politics of an Outlaw Nation

“George Katsiaficas is America’s leading practitioner of the method of ‘participant-observation,’ acting with and observing the movements that he is studying. This study of People Power is a brilliant narrative of the present as history from below. It is a detailed account of the struggle for freedom and social justice, encompassing the different currents, both reformist and revolutionary, in a balanced study that combines objectivity and commitment. Above all, he presents the beauty of popular movements in the process of self-emancipation.”
—James Petras, professor of sociology at Binghamton University

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Praise

“A well-informed survey of the global ‘New Left’ of 1968.”
—Eric Hobsbawm, author of The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991

“George Katsiaficas’s work presents an understanding how we of the New Left used our education as a practice of freedoms: confronting the racist, warmongering status quo with the objective of creative participatory democracy. As we continue to work toward cooperational humanism here at home and the world over, this insightful analysis provides a useful backdrop for social activism and the struggle for future democratic human rights.”
—Bobby Seale, former chairman and cofounder of the Black Panther Party

“This is the best book on the New Left, the only truly global history that historicizes the social movements of the 1960s. It is both a cautionary tale and a guide for dark times that require imaginative resistance. This new edition could not have come at a better time.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1975

“By including feminism prominently in the global insurgency of 1968, this book gives us comprehensive understanding of the broad mobilization that was at the heart of the movement. Everywhere in the world, people simultaneously challenged wars, racism, and archaic politics and also patterns of domination in everyday life.”
—Mariarosa Dalla Costa, professor emerita, University of Padua, and theorist of Wages for Housework

“Of all the many studies of the wave of radicalism marking the so-called long sixties, The Global Imagination of 1968 ranks among the very best. Nothing else rivals the lucidity and succinctness with which Katsiaficas captures not only the liberatory vision but the sheer vibrancy with which the period’s global movement was imbued. The book should be considered essential reading by all who seek transformative change.”
—Ward Churchill, author and activist

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Praise

“One of the best books on squatting in English language. An immensely useful, wide-ranging, and insightful book about a fascinating part of radical history. PM Press has finally made it possible for American activists to understand the hidden history of housing.“
—Andrej Grubacic, coauthor of Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

“This is a wonderful and important book. It makes key contributions to how we should think about squatting as well as how we should think about the best way to study social movements. Insightful, provocative, and educational, it provides a broad spectrum of cases and perspectives on squatter movements in Europe.“
—Linus Owens, author of Cracking under Pressure

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Praise

“The target audience is not the academic middle-class with passive sympathies for rioting, nor the all-knowing critical critics, but the activists of a young generation.” —Edition I.D. Archiv

“Some years ago, an experienced autonomous activist from Berlin sat down, talked to friends and comrades about the development of the scene, and, with Fire and Flames, wrote the best book about the movement that we have.” —Düsseldorfer Stadtzeitung für Politik und Kultur

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Book Events

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Reviews

• The City Is Ours: Squatting and Autonomous Movements in More Thoughts Zine
• The Sixties: The Political and the Personal
• Scenes Resembling Civil War
• Fire and Flames: A Review
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 2 in NewBooks.Asia
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 2 in Socialism and Democracy
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 2 in Counterpunch
• Flowers in Gun Barrels
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 1: A Review
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 1 in Choice
• Lessons from Korea: Asia’s Unknown Uprisings in Counterpunch
• Geronimo’s Fire and Flames Reviewed by the Vancouver Media Co-op
• Fire and Flames Reviewed in Counterpunch
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 1: A Review in Socialism & Democracy
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 1 in the Journal of Asian Studies
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol. 1 in Turning the Tide
• The Global Imagination of 1968 in Foreword Reviews
• Whatever Happened to Those Radical Boomer Activists from the ’60s and ’70s?
• The Global Imagination of 1968: Mention
• The Global Imagination of 1968 in The San Francisco Bay View
• The City is Ours: A CHOICE Review
• A Most Violent Year: A Review of The Global Imagination of 1968
• Redefining Urban Renewal: The City is Ours reviewed in CounterPunch
• Politics and the City: A Badly Bifurcated Left

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Interviews

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Mentions

• People Power Upends a Dictator

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Blog

• US professor chronicles Asia’s unknown uprisings in The Hankyoreh
• Listen to George speak about Asia’s Unknown Uprisings and the Thailand protests on Asia Pacific Forum
• Listen to George speak on his new book Asia’s Unknown Uprisings: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century at a book release party with Selma James
• http://eroseffect.com
• American Freedom: Human Rights vs. U.S.A. Patriot Act Talk at Yale Law School, April 24th, 2004

• Recent campus occupations: History repeated
• Rest in Peace “Jimmy”  Kyaw Min Yu
• Eurocentrism and Civil Society
• The Impossible Dream: A Review of Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future”
• A Response to “Spontaneous Combustion”
• “Behind Recent Attacks on Herbert Marcuse”
• The Gwangju Uprising— George Katsiaficas on Against the Grain
• The Impossible Dream: A Review of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future
• George Katsiaficas 11/11/17 Talk at Zuccotti Park
• Managing the North Korean Crisis
• Suit against the CIA re US Involvement in the 1979 Assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee
• Gwangju 518 and the Future of Global Democracy