Anti War Activism

In this book, Ian Taylor examines how a social movement, the anti-Iraq War movement in the UK, engaged with the media as a part of their campaigning against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Moving beyond content analysis to draw upon interviews with locally based journalists and activists, Taylor examines how locally based anti-war groups engaged with their local press, as well as how those groups were reported on by the local press in their respective areas. In the process of exploring these ideas, the book takes on questions like: How did local journalists assess the legitimacy of the anti-war movement? How, why, and to what extent did opponents of the war pursue local press coverage? What bearing did the social composition of the movement have on the way they set about engaging with the media? How did the local press handle the controversy surrounding opposition to military action against Iraq? Media Relations of the Anti-War Movement makes a unique contribution to research on the interactions between social movements and the media and plugs a major gap in the literature on the Iraq War and the media.

This collection of 14 essays, generated by a 1990 conference on the Vietnam antiwar movement, analyzes movement strategies, the role of the military and women in resistance, and the movement in the schools. [Publishers Weekly].

Between 1965 and 1973, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans participated in one of the most remarkable and significant people's movements in American history. Through marches, rallies, draft resistance, teach-ins, civil disobedience, and non-violent demonstrations at both the national and local levels, Americans vehemently protested the country's involvement in the Vietnam War. Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, how it intersected with other social and political movements of the time, and its lasting effect on the country. The book is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the Anti-War movement of the twentieth century.

"Nine U.S. activists discuss the parts they played in opposing the war at home and their risky travels to Vietnam in the midst of the conflict to engage in people-to-people diplomacy. In 2013, the 'Hanoi 9' activists revisited Vietnam together; this book presents their thoughtful reflections on those experiences, as well as the stories of five U.S. veterans who returned to make reparations. Their successes in antiwar organizing will challenge the myths that still linger from that era, and inspire a new generation seeking peaceful solutions to war and conflict today"--

The first interpretive history that covers the antiwar movement in this country throughout the entire Vietnam era. Richly illustrated with compelling photographs of the times, the book chronicles the war struggle that provoked a struggle about America.

The first academic account of the 21st century anti-war and peace movement. Empirically rich and conceptually innovative, Anti-War Activism pays especially close attention to the changed information environment of protest, the complex alliances of activists, the diversity of participants, as well as campaigners' use of new (and old) media.

"With admirable global range, this refreshingly insightful volume explores the importance of international protests against the Vietnam War for the radicalising of national politics. By emphasizing the transnational circulation of ideas and people so vital to that history, it challenges older notions of centre and periphery, while decentring the United States from the story." --Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, USA. This book assesses the global emergence and transformation of protest movements during the Vietnam War era. It explores the relationship between activism explicitly focused on the war and other emancipatory and revolutionary struggles, moving beyond existing scholarship to examine the myriad interlinked protest issues and mobilisations around the globe during the Second Indochina War. Bringing together scholars working from a range of geographical, historiographical, and methodological perspectives, the volume offers a new framework for understanding the history of Vietnam War protest. A central inspiration is to shift our focus away from established perspectives that are thoroughly focused on the role of the United States with only peripheral attention paid to other parts of the world. The chapters are organised around the confluence of movements from the three geopolitical regions of the world: the core capitalist countries of the so-called first world, the socialist bloc, and the Global South, chiefly during the 1960s and early 1970s, but harking back to antecedents where appropriate. The opening section of the book lays the groundwork by focusing on international organisations that explicitly sought to bridge and unite solidarity and protest around the world. In a world of persistent military conflict, this book provides timely contributions to the larger questions of what war does to protest movements and what protest movements do to war. Alexander Sedlmaier is Reader in Modern History at Bangor University, Wales, UK, and International Fellow at the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. He works on contemporary German, European, and North American history and is author of Consumption and Violence: Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany (2014).

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.