Prisons, Political prisoners, Prisoners, Imprisonment, History, United States, Political aspects, Social movements 

An accessible yet wide-ranging historical primer about how mass imprisonment has been a tool of repression deployed against diverse left-wing social movements over the last fifty years. Berger examines some of the most dynamic social movements across half a century: black liberation, Puerto Rican independence, Native American sovereignty, Chicano radicalism, white antiracist and working-class mobilizations, pacifist and antinuclear campaigns, and earth liberation and animal rights. Berger's encyclopedic knowledge of American social movements provides a rich comparative history of numerous social movements that continue to shape contemporary politics. The book also offers a little-heard voice in contemporary critiques of mass incarceration. Rather than seeing the issue of America's prison growth as stemming solely from the war on drugs, Berger locates mass incarceration within a slew of social movements that have provided steep challenges to state power. -- taken from publisher website 

Notes:
Includes bibliographic references (pages 89-95).

Acknowledgments -- Foreword / by Ruth Wilson Gilmore -- Introduction -- Ch. 1. North American freedom struggles. Black liberation and settler colonialism -- The American Indian Movement -- Puerto Rican independence -- Chicano liberation -- Ch. 2. Anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, and revolutionary nonviolence. The politics of solidarity -- Militants of the white working class -- Revolutionary nonviolence -- Ch. 3. Earth and animal liberation -- Ch. 4. Déjà vu and the Patriot Act -- Conclusion : a new beginning -- Afterword / by dream hampton -- A bibliographic note -- Organizational resources -- About the authors.