Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America

Author:   Jeffrey Stout
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
ISBN:  

9780691135861


Pages:   368
Publication Date:   31 October 2010
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.

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Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America


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Full Product Details

Author:   Jeffrey Stout
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.90cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.652kg
ISBN:  

9780691135861


ISBN 10:   069113586
Pages:   368
Publication Date:   31 October 2010
Audience:   College/higher education ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

List of Maps xi Preface xiii Chapter One: The Responsibilities of a Citizen 1 Chapter Two: A Power Analysis 21 Chapter Three: Organizing for the Common Good 34 Chapter Four: Rites of Solidarity, Commitment, and Mourning 45 Chapter Five: Domination, Anger, and Grief 53 Chapter Six: Public Address 70 Chapter Seven: Ain't It Awful? 85 Chapter Eight: The Authority to Lead 93 Chapter Nine: On the Treatment of Opponents 114 Chapter Ten: Organize, Reflect, and Reorganize 125 Chapter Eleven: The Compelling Force of the Ideal 134 Chapter Twelve: Face-to-Face Meetings 148 Chapter Thirteen: The Passion of St. Rose 165 Chapter Fourteen: Blood and Harmony 181 Chapter Fifteen: Fathers and Sisters for Life 186 Chapter Sixteen: Pastors and Flocks 196 Chapter Seventeen: The Contested Sacred 210 Chapter Eighteen: Across Great Scars of Wrong 235 Chapter Nineteen: The Organizer President 260 Chapter Twenty: Walking in Our Sleep 278 Acknowledgments 291 Notes 295 Index 329

Reviews

Blessed Are the Organized should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy in the United States, and anyone who cares about the making of politics. -- Lauren F. Winner, Soujourners Magazine Blessed Are the Organized has a good chance for mass appeal because of the timeliness and the timelessness of the subject. The book is about the little fighting back in big numbers to get the attention of the powerful. Jeffrey Stout shows how it is done in a number of situations. It works. -- John Presta, New York Journal of Books Stout offers a penetrating tour of the organizing efforts of Southwest IAF affiliates, from the devastated neighborhoods of post-Katrina New Orleans, to the shantytown colonias of the Rio Grande valley in Texas, to the crime-ridden neighborhoods of southeast Los Angeles, to a meeting of more affluent democrats in a Marin County synagogue. He gives us a kind of thick ethnographic description of grassroots, face-to-face democracy, seeking in the stories he hears and the events he witnesses to discern the governing principles and practices of a democratic counterculture that has developed largely under the radar of the media spectacles that pass for American public life... The bulk of Stout's book is devoted to a full, often moving, account of these organizing practices at work--not only successfully but unsuccessfully... Incisive as his theoretical abstractions from these stories are, Stout's greater gift to democrats may lie in bringing to light the struggles, and especially the victories, of the largely obscure men and women who populate his narrative... One can only wish for this heartening book a large, wide, and diverse audience. Few will welcome it more than those democrats who, as Stout once did, find themselves stammering for some answers in the face of the skepticism and despair over democracy's future that grip our faded republic. -- Robert Westbook, Commonweal Stout's book is a must-read for an understanding of citizen participation at all levels of organized problem solving in U.S. government and politics. -- Choice


Is community organizing a strong force in America's inner cities or a negligible presence in America's body politic? Or is it both? These are questions that engage . . . Jeffrey Stout in Blessed Are the Organized , his . . . excellent history of the community-based groups affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). -- Harold Meyerson, American Prospect


Blessed Are the Organized should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy in the United States, and anyone who cares about the making of politics. -- Lauren F. Winner, Soujorners Magazine Blessed Are the Organized has a good chance for mass appeal because of the timeliness and the timelessness of the subject. The book is about the little fighting back in big numbers to get the attention of the powerful. Jeffrey Stout shows how it is done in a number of situations. It works. -- John Presta, New York Journal of Books Stout offers a penetrating tour of the organizing efforts of Southwest IAF affiliates, from the devastated neighborhoods of post-Katrina New Orleans, to the shantytown colonias of the Rio Grande valley in Texas, to the crime-ridden neighborhoods of southeast Los Angeles, to a meeting of more affluent democrats in a Marin County synagogue. He gives us a kind of thick ethnographic description of grassroots, face-to-face democracy, seeking in the stories he hears and the events he witnesses to discern the governing principles and practices of a democratic counterculture that has developed largely under the radar of the media spectacles that pass for American public life... The bulk of Stout's book is devoted to a full, often moving, account of these organizing practices at work--not only successfully but unsuccessfully... Incisive as his theoretical abstractions from these stories are, Stout's greater gift to democrats may lie in bringing to light the struggles, and especially the victories, of the largely obscure men and women who populate his narrative... One can only wish for this heartening book a large, wide, and diverse audience. Few will welcome it more than those democrats who, as Stout once did, find themselves stammering for some answers in the face of the skepticism and despair over democracy's future that grip our faded republic. -- Robert Westbook, Commonweal Stout's book is a must-read for an understanding of citizen participation at all levels of organized problem solving in U.S. government and politics. -- Choice Stout provides useful wisdom for those who will not settle for less than a genuine democratic transformation of our society. -- Tikkun Blessed Are the Organized is a crucially important work that ... analyses our political system through the eyes of the underdogs. This perspective of the periphery is a rare sight in a world dominated by the elite agenda of the mainstream media. -- E@sy Yo1k blog


Blessed Are the Organized should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy in the United States, and anyone who cares about the making of politics. --Lauren F. Winner, Soujorners Magazine Blessed Are the Organized has a good chance for mass appeal because of the timeliness and the timelessness of the subject. The book is about the little fighting back in big numbers to get the attention of the powerful. Jeffrey Stout shows how it is done in a number of situations. It works. --John Presta, New York Journal of Books Stout offers a penetrating tour of the organizing efforts of Southwest IAF affiliates, from the devastated neighborhoods of post-Katrina New Orleans, to the shantytown colonias of the Rio Grande valley in Texas, to the crime-ridden neighborhoods of southeast Los Angeles, to a meeting of more affluent democrats in a Marin County synagogue. He gives us a kind of thick ethnographic description of grassroots, face-to-face democracy, seeking in the stories he hears and the events he witnesses to discern the governing principles and practices of a democratic counterculture that has developed largely under the radar of the media spectacles that pass for American public life... The bulk of Stouts book is devoted to a full, often moving, account of these organizing practices at worknot only successfully but unsuccessfully... Incisive as his theoretical abstractions from these stories are, Stouts greater gift to democrats may lie in bringing to light the struggles, and especially the victories, of the largely obscure men and women who populate his narrative... One can only wish for this heartening book a large, wide, and diverse audience. Few will welcome it more than those democrats who, as Stout once did, find themselves stammering for some answers in the face of the skepticism and despair over democracys future that grip our faded republic. --Robert Westbrook, Commonweal Stout's book is a must-read for an understanding of citizen participation at all levels of organized problem solving in U.S. government and politics. --Choice Stout provides useful wisdom for those who will not settle for less than a genuine democratic transformation of our society. --Tikkun Blessed Are the Organized is a crucially important work that ... analyses our political system through the eyes of the underdogs. This perspective of the periphery is a rare sight in a world dominated by the elite agenda of the mainstream media. --E@sy Yo1k blog Written in a dynamic style and insisting on characters' profiles, Stout's book is a useful supplement, with data specific to contemporary society, to the political anthropology studies whose main theme is how democratic communities function. --Daniel Sandru, CEU Political Science Journal


Blessed Are the Organized should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy in the United States, and anyone who cares about the making of politics. -- Lauren F. Winner Soujorners Magazine Blessed Are the Organized has a good chance for mass appeal because of the timeliness and the timelessness of the subject. The book is about the little fighting back in big numbers to get the attention of the powerful. Jeffrey Stout shows how it is done in a number of situations. It works. -- John Presta New York Journal of Books Stout offers a penetrating tour of the organizing efforts of Southwest IAF affiliates, from the devastated neighborhoods of post-Katrina New Orleans, to the shantytown colonias of the Rio Grande valley in Texas, to the crime-ridden neighborhoods of southeast Los Angeles, to a meeting of more affluent democrats in a Marin County synagogue. He gives us a kind of thick ethnographic description of grassroots, face-to-face democracy, seeking in the stories he hears and the events he witnesses to discern the governing principles and practices of a democratic counterculture that has developed largely under the radar of the media spectacles that pass for American public life... The bulk of Stout's book is devoted to a full, often moving, account of these organizing practices at work--not only successfully but unsuccessfully... Incisive as his theoretical abstractions from these stories are, Stout's greater gift to democrats may lie in bringing to light the struggles, and especially the victories, of the largely obscure men and women who populate his narrative... One can only wish for this heartening book a large, wide, and diverse audience. Few will welcome it more than those democrats who, as Stout once did, find themselves stammering for some answers in the face of the skepticism and despair over democracy's future that grip our faded republic. -- Robert Westbrook Commonweal Stout's book is a must-read for an understanding of citizen participation at all levels of organized problem solving in U.S. government and politics. Choice Stout provides useful wisdom for those who will not settle for less than a genuine democratic transformation of our society. Tikkun Blessed Are the Organized is a crucially important work that ... analyses our political system through the eyes of the underdogs. This perspective of the periphery is a rare sight in a world dominated by the elite agenda of the mainstream media. y Yo1k blog Written in a dynamic style and insisting on characters' profiles, Stout's book is a useful supplement, with data specific to contemporary society, to the political anthropology studies whose main theme is how democratic communities function. -- Daniel Sandru CEU Political Science Journal


Is community organizing a strong force in America's inner cities or a negligible presence in America's body politic? Or is it both? These are questions that engage ... Jeffrey Stout in Blessed Are the Organized, his ... excellent history of the community-based groups affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). -- Harold Meyerson, American Prospect


Author Information

Jeffrey Stout is professor of religion at Princeton University. His books include ""Ethics After Babel"" and ""Democracy and Tradition"" (both Princeton). He is past president of the American Academy of Religion and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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