The Verso Book of Dissent: From Spartacus to the Shoe-Thrower of Baghdad edited by Andrew Hsiao and Audrea Lim, Preface by Tariq Ali
This suggestion comes from one of the Occupy Wall Street Librarians. “What are you guys telling everyone to read?” I asked. He immediately picked up this book, which he said was one of his favorites. “Verso is a great publisher generally,” another guy who was stacking books added. “We like everything they publish.” (We do too.)
The Verso Book of Dissent is an anthology of voices of resistance from every part and era of human history. The texts are ordered chronologically; the first is a text called “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant” written ca. 1800; the last few entries include statements from Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, and the journalist Muntazer Al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George Bush in protest of the Iraq War. The curatorial scope of this book is impressive–along with essays and speeches, there are songs, pamphlets, even jokes. “What is socialism? Answer: The painful transition from capitalism to capitalism.”
