blog — April 23

Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos: Two Free eBooks to Fight Back

In solidarity with the pro-Palestine actions by students at Columbia University, NYU, and other universities throughout the country, we are proud to offer free digital copies of Resistance in the Age of Chaos by Mark Edelman Boren.

A sweeping, two-volume recent history of student protest, Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos not only highlights successful resistance students movements of the past 20+ years, but also examines the ways that new technologies further enable direct actions and other tactics for resistance to administrative and police repression.

As Mark Boren writes, "Student resistance throws into relief the relationships within our societies between the rulers and the people. It defines cultural moments and indicates the directions in which nations are heading. And if student activism has a rich and storied past, it is just as true that student movements are shaping the world more than they ever have before. ... The explosion of protests in the world has shown us that there are millions of people — many of them young and altruistic — who are willing to stand up to forces of oppression, to risk their bodies, their freedom, and their lives to make the future better than the past, and that is humbling, inspiring, and hopeful for the future."

Student resistance in the first decade of the 21st century was the single most powerful liberating force around the globe during those years. Challenging governments—in a few cases, overturning governments—at a time when representational democracies appeared weak and authoritarian regimes were on the rise. In Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos, Book 1, Mark Boren goes continent by continent, country by country, to show us the contours of the new frontlines of resistance, the sacrifices that were made, the seismic changes caused by the Internet, and the new powers of surveillance and military technology that governments across the globe used to monitor and suppress student groups, raising the stakes and the human cost of resistance in many countries.

Student resistance in the second decade of the 21st century has increased in both quantity and quality, supercharged by social media, to the point where it has become the single most powerful force for change in the world today, embodying the hopes of hundreds of millions of citizens to finally address climate change, the condition of women and other major issues. Student resistance movements are the vanguard that can jumpstart wider social movements that put governments on notice at a time when corruption and stagnation plague democracies and authoritarian regimes alike. In Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos, Book 2, Mark Boren details the increasing technological sophistication of student movements, as the stakes continue to rise and the movements grow ever larger. With 1.5 billion students in the world, student activists today use technology to turn local movements into national and international ones. Armed with sophisticated communications and cell phone cameras to record police violence, linked to websites for broadcasting and encrypted apps for privacy, today's student activists have already done much to stop genocide and ensure government reform or regime change in scores of countries.