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Ideas for Action | Praise
"Ideas for Action is an excellent overview of what's wrong with the world and about how we can work to make it better. Kaufman explains a great deal—capitalism, globalization, racial and gender inequality, the threatened environment—in a way that is both accessible and sophisticated. Ideas for Action will be a great textbook for many courses in many subject areas."
—Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara and author of The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II
"I loved using Ideas for Action in the classroom. Students found it immediately accessible and very engaging. It was a great resource for teaching activist students, and more important, students who know little about social justice work but still want to understand the world around them in terms that make sense. It’s unpretentious, readable, and very compelling. Use this book!"
—Nicky González Yuen, De Anza College (Cupertino, CA)
"Having cut her teeth in the 1980s Central American solidarity movement and continuing today as a local tenant rights activist, Cynthia Kaufman weaves her story into a brilliant and seamless theoretical work on radical activism in the United States. Although Kaufman holds a doctorate in philosophy, and her deep and extensive knowledge of political theory from Karl Marx to Stuart Hall is clearly presented, this book is no academic monograph, rather a manual for organizers and for the people. Kaufman's modest yet sure voice is that of the best of feminist and social justice writing today."
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Outlaw Woman
"There's a long-running conversation about what's wrong with our world and how to fix it. Ideas for Action fills in on the 'backstory' that can help you to join that conversation."
—Jeremy Brecher, author of Strike! and Globalization from Below
"As intellectuals and scholars we are needed, now more than ever, to shine a light on the possibility of social change. Professor Kaufman does just that in this book. A wonderful book."
—Aída Hurtado, Professor of Psychology, UC Santa Cruz
"What is remarkable about Cynthia Kaufman's new book, Ideas for Action, is how it steps back from our day-to-day struggles to gain historical and theoretical perspective, and then moves forward again to use these perspectives for the solution of specific, immediate problems."
—Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"I definitely recommend Cynthia Kaufman's Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change. I'd particularly recommend it to anyone interested in activism or progressive politics. The book is designed as a way for activists to get a grasp of a broad range of progressive topics quickly and coherently, and it's a clear description of globalization, capitalism, racism, sexism, Gramsci, activism. But in the process, she writing the clearest statement of left activists beliefs I've seen. More experienced activists and intellectuals are likely to get a nice "aha" moment as they recognize ideas they use, but hadn't related to each other, presented concisely and convincingly. She also does a great job of presenting the diversity of progressive positions and beliefs without partisanship that would prevent a reader from taking their own sides. Useful in a bunch of ways."
—Greg Smithsimon, review from Amazon.com
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