What fuels revolutionary political movements and activists?

CQ Press releases a new compendium on radical politics in the United States 

What extreme ideas have challenged and influenced America’s political system? Who believed in and supported those ideas, and what were their motivations and actions? Launching today, the CQ Press Guide to Radical Politics in the United States provides an overview of the radical political movements on both the left and the right sides of America’s political system and examines their impact on popular opinion, political discourse, and public policy.

“Many radical activists have indeed paid a high price for holding beliefs outside mainstream politics, including loss of reputation, savings and employment, police harassment, FBI surveillance, lawsuits, assault, and murder,” write the editors Susan Burgess and Kate Leeman. “However, many radical political movements have successfully achieved their specific goals, altered the shape of mainstream politics, or were so successful that the causes they promoted have come to be viewed as mainstream.”

The CQ Press Guide to Radical Politics in the United States chronicles the development of revolutionary political movements that addressed a range of ideas, including

• Organized Labor and Farmer Rebellions
• Socialism, Communism, and Other Anticapitalist Movements
• Anarchists, Militias, and Other Insurgents
• Native American and Mexican American Resistance to U.S. Sovereignty
• Resistance to Slavery and Black Nationalism
• The Ku Klux Klan, Fascism, and White Supremacy
• Nativism and Immigration
• Gender and Sexuality
• Peace and Antiwar Movements
• Environmentalism, Environmental Justice, and Animal Rights

The text also details the movements’ central events, organizations, and individuals. Sidebar features on various topics, such as the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement, provide additional contextual information.

“The ongoing tradition of radical politics in the United States is obscured in many accounts, which typically focus on moderate groups and limit the discussion of radical politics to spectacular failures or individual activists,” continued the editors. “In many cases, such an approach results in an incomplete and misleading understanding of the political forces that motivated key shifts in American public opinion and policy, often leading to the erroneous belief that radical political movements are generally ineffectual and counterproductive and result only in needless violence, public backlash, and harsh repressive measures.”

For more information, click here. A FREE online trial of SAGE Knowledge, including the CQ Press Guide to Radical Politics in the United States, is available by emailing librarysales@sagepub.com.

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CQ Press Guide to Radical Politics in the United States

April 2016                                                    384 pages       

ISBN: 978-1-4522-9227-4            Print Price: $185.00

eISBN: 978-1-4522-9225-0

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Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE is a leading international provider of innovative, high-quality content publishing more than 950 journals and over 800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. www.sagepublishing.com

CQ Press, an imprint of SAGE, is a leading publisher of books, reference content, periodicals, and digital products on American government, public policy, and international affairs. Known for its objectivity and breadth and depth of coverage, CQ Press consistently ranks among the top academic and professional publishers for its high-quality content and scholarship. CQ Press was founded with the mission of promoting democracy through education and joined the SAGE family in 2008. www.cqpress.com