People, Power, Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal

by Marshall Ganz Narrated by Marshall Ganz

Overview

At a moment in which our everyday practice of democracy has atrophied, and political, economic, and technological forces have weakened our capacity for collective action, People, Power, Change is a once-in-a-generation book for anyone who wants to create real and lasting change.

Marshall Ganz is one of the world's leading authorities on democratic leadership, organizing, and action and this book is the culmination of his decades of teaching, research, and practice. In People, Power, Change Ganz offers students, educators, and organizers access to the craft he has learned, adapted, and shared over the last half-century of creating effective collective action. It is not a blueprint, but a road map.

Ganz explores the values, ideas, and craft core to the practice of organizing and offers an actionable framework for how to actually do it. He focuses the book on the creation and substance of relationships, the fuel of values and narrative, the resources and power of strategy, the necessity of structure, and the accountability of action. Across these five organizing practices, Ganz weaves in his personal experiences from a lifetime of organizing in iconic social movements and campaigns to illustrate how collective action actually works and to build the practices and skills that must be developed to do it with intention and with success.

“If there was ever a moment when this message needed to be heard, this is it! Read it, and then get to work!”-Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and Third Act

This audiobook contains a supplemental PDF.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/10/2024

Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Ganz (Why David Sometimes Wins) draws on his career as a grassroots organizer, particularly in the Mexican farm workers’ movement in the 1970s, to offer an accessible manual on how to bring about meaningful social change. He maintains that for democracies to survive, activists and concerned citizens must come together in an organized way to effectively counter authoritarian moves from their governments. Ganz divides organizing into five key practices—“building relationships, telling stories, strategizing, acting and structuring”—and neatly breaks down each practice into the values they communicate, the concepts they lean on, and the skills needed to master them. He emphasizes that the skills are ones often used in everyday life and that they can be taught to anyone, which brings an approachable realness to legends like Cesar Chavez and Saul Alinsky who populate his personal recollections and whom he draws on for examples. Throughout, Ganz puts a premium on fostering a community’s cohesiveness and training it in the tools of organizing over preaching ideological purity, arguing that laying the groundwork will “enable that community to turn resources it has into the power it needs to get what it wants.” Ganz’s can-do-ism is a welcome counterpoint to recent books bemoaning a decline in civic engagement. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"A spirited, encouraging handbook for progressive organizing ... The user's manual that progressives have been missing until now - highly recommended." — Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159367945
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	08/06/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged