Political Action: A Practical Guide to Movement Politics

Political theorist Michael Walzer's classic guide is a perfect introduction to social activism, including what-to-do advice for deciding which issues to take on, organizing, fundraising, and providing effective leadership

Political Action is a how-to book for activists that was written at one of the darkest moments of the Nixon administration and remains no less timely and intelligent and useful today. Michael Walzer draws on his extensive engagement in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s to lay out the practical steps necessary to keep movement politics alive both in victory and in defeat. What do people need to do when out of outrage or fear of looming disaster they come together to demand change? Should they focus on one or several issues? Should they form coalitions? What can and can’t be accomplished through electoral politics? How can movements operate democratically? What is effective leadership? Walzer addresses such questions with clarity, concision, wisdom, and wit in a book that everywhere insists not only on the centrality of movement politics to the health of democratic societies but on the deep satisfaction that is to be found there. Political Action is both an indispensable resource for activists and a lasting and inspiring summons to arms.

Michael Walzer is a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He served as the co-editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades and has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. His most recent book is A Foreign Policy for the Left.

Jon Wiener is the host and producer of Start Making Sense, The Nation’s weekly podcast, and a longtime contributing editor at The Nation. He is a professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Irvine, and his most recent book is How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America.