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November 1989: East Germans danced on the Berlin Wall, and the communist regime began to collapse. A unique revolution has occurred: changes were brought about by peaceful, spontaneous demonstrations. No group organized the famous gatherings of thousands of people at the Karl Marx Square in Leipzig on October 9, 1989, and no government or military attempt was made to crack down on the demonstrations.The events of the GDR revolution have been well documented, but until now there has been no comprehensive attempt to explain the revolution. The authors contend that any explanation must focus on the individual GDR citizen; while situating the individual at the focal point of their analysis, they demonstrate how political events and reforms, in the GDR and neighboring countries, motivated citizens to act despite the risk to their lives. Applying a version of the theory of rational action that uses “soft” incentives and individual perceptions, the authors select the factors that help explain the GDR revolution. New findings include that political discontent — not economic — was a major cause for participation in the demonstrations.Not limiting themselves to theoretical speculations, the authors support their arguments with original documents, jokes, slogans, and a unique data set drawn from a representative survey of 1,300 Leipzig residents in 1990 focusing exclusively on the revolutionary period. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be of interest to general readers as well as sociologists, historians, and political scientists.

An original history of the popular movement against the War on Terror—the greatest case of “we told you so” in modern political history.
 
Just after 9/11, President George W. Bush climbed the rubble where the World Trade Center had stood. Surrounded by shouts of anger, he said, “The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” With these words, Bush ushered in the War on Terror. Quickly, a global protest movement mobilized against it, reshaping the political, moral, and media landscape.

Jeremy Varon’s Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War is the definitive history of that movement. Millions of Americans participated in thousands of acts of protest, from demonstrations to civil disobedience to peace encampments in Iraq. On February 15, 2003, up to 30 million people worldwide took to the streets in the largest protest in human history. But this enormous outcry was not enough to stop the US invasion of Iraq. Varon explores the limits to the movement’s power but also shows how it worked to make opposition to the Iraq War a part of public debate, hastening its end and limiting the broader War on Terror. In the book, you’ll meet the families of the 9/11 victims, Iraq War veterans, and Gold Star families who spoke out against war.

Written with a lively and revelatory voice, Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War illuminates the passion of the peace movement, the mark it made, and the enduring legacies of the War on Terror.