The Verso Book of Dissent: Revolutionary Words from Three Millennia of Rebellion and Resistance

By Andrew Hsiao, Audrea Lim and Tariq Ali

Fully updated compendium of revolt and resistance

Throughout the ages and across every continent, people have struggled against those in power and raised their voices in protest-rallying others around them or, sometimes, inspiring uprisings many years later. Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti-Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Cairo to Moscow and New York City.

This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent should be in the arsenal of every rebel who understands that words and ideas are the ultimate weapons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781784783082

Tariq Ali

Andrea Olsen is an author, choreographer, and educator currently teaching as Professor Emerita of Dance at Middlebury College. She has written four books: Moving Between Worlds, Bodystories: A Guide to Experimental Anatomy, Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide, and The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dance and Dance Making. A certified instructor of the Holden OiGong and Embodyoga, Olsen has taught various workshops and regularly contributes to Contact Quarterly, a dance improvisation journal. She is the recipient of a number of awards, including an ACLS Contemplative Practice Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship in New Zealand.