Shut Them Down!: The G8, Gleaneagles 2005 And the Movement of Movements

Shut Them Down! is an essential collection of reflections on the movement against the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. As well as action stories from the frontlines of resistance to the summit, there are detailed accounts of how various aspects of the mobilisation were organised, and analysis of the lessons to be learned. But Shut Them Down!’s relevance extends far beyond the Gleneagles experience. It addresses fundamental issues such as the nature of openness and ‘horizontality’, and the limitations of the ‘activist’ identity. Most important of all, Shut Them Down! poses the question: how can we take those worlds we glimpse in such moments and generalise them so that they make sense in the rest of our lives?

David Harvie is a British political activist.