George Katsiaficas Knihy

Using social movements as a prism to illuminate the oft-hidden history of twentieth-century Korea, this book provides detailed analysis of major uprisings that have patterned that country's politics and society. With a central focus on the Gwangju Uprising, which ultimately proved decisive in South Korea's democratization. Karsiaficas extrapolates Korean experiences to examine possibilities of global social movements in the twenty-first century. The book's historical sweep ranges from conflicts as Korea entered the modern era, to the country's division and the Korean War, through to opposition to neoliberal economic policies, and ongoing struggles in the internet age. Ten years in the making, it is the first volume in a magisterial two-part study that concludes by analyzing in rich detail uprisings in nine other places: the Philippines, Burma, Tibet, China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia

The grassroots movements in nine places in East Asia in the 1980s and 1990s are empirically reconstructed in this volume. Asian history, especially radical history, is a subject often glossed over in the West. Seeking to remedy that, this book begins with an overview of late-20th-century history, the context within which these movements arose. The author relates Asian uprisings to predecessors in 1968 and shows their subsequent influence on the wave of uprisings that swept Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. Then, by detailing the histories of uprisings in nine places—the Philippines, Burma, Tibet, China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia—significant insight into major constituencies of change and the trajectories of these societies becomes visible. This book places the grassroots movements in a global context and analyzes them in light of major sociological theories.

With discussions of more than 50 countries, Katsiaficas articulates an understanding of the 1960s' social struggles not bound by national or continental divides nor focused on famous individuals. From the Prague revolt against Soviet communism to the French May uprising, the Vietnam Tet offensive, African anticolonial insurgencies, the civil rights movement, and campus eruptions in Latin America, Yugoslavia, and the United States, this book portrays the movements of the '60s as intuitively tied together. Student movements challenged authorities in almost every country, giving the insurgency a global character. As uprisings occur with increasing frequency in the 21st century, the lessons of 1968 provide useful insights for future struggles.

Since the modern anti-globalisation movement kicked off with the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, a new generation has been engaging in anti-capitalist direct action. Its aims, politics, lifestyles and tactics grow directly out of the autonomous social movements that emerged in Europe from the 1970s through to the mid-1990s. The Subversion of Politics fills in the gaps between the momentous events of 1968 and 1999. Katsiaficas presents the protagonists of social revolt - Italian feminists, squatters, disarmament, punk rockers and street fighters in sympathetic light.