About this book:

*Revolt and Resistance* provides a comprehensive historical survey of how marginalized populations—peasants, workers, tribal communities, and enslaved people—have systematically challenged state and imperial power. The book moves beyond traditional military histories to center "subaltern" agency, exploring a wide repertoire of defiance that includes both dramatic armed insurrections and "everyday" forms of resistance like sabotage, flight, and the maintenance of alternative moral economies. From the grain riots of early modern Europe and the maroon republics of the Atlantic world to the anti-colonial prophets of Africa and the millenarian movements of Asia, the text illustrates how those with the least formal power have consistently forced authorities to account for human dignity and the right to subsistence.

The narrative traces the evolution of struggle through the lens of changing economic and geographic frontiers. It examines how the enclosure of the commons, the rise of the plantation system, and the expansion of the "extraction frontiers" in mining and oil created new conditions for exploitation and, subsequently, new forms of solidarity. The transition from the localized machine-breaking of the Luddites to the organized power of industrial unions and the strategic leverage of transport workers demonstrates a growing sophistication in collective action. Throughout these eras, the book emphasizes the often-invisible "gendered labors of revolt," showing how women’s work in provisioning and care formed the essential infrastructure for sustained resistance.

In the contemporary era, the book analyzes how resistance has adapted to neoliberalism and the digital economy. It covers the rise of indigenous sovereignty movements like the Zapatistas and the Standing Rock water protectors, who link local territorial defense to global critiques of capitalism. It also explores "austerity protests" sparked by international debt regimes and the new "digital picket lines" formed by gig workers and farmers facing algorithmic control. By weaving together oral histories, folk traditions, and official archives, the text presents a "history from below" that portrays revolt not as a series of isolated failures, but as a continuous, driving pulse of political change.

The concluding chapters reflect on the aftermath of these uprisings, examining the complex dialectic between state repression and popular memory. Even when movements are militarily defeated, the book argues that they fundamentally remake the states that suppress them, forcing institutional concessions or embedding a "spirit of insurrection" into the cultural landscape. Ultimately, *Revolt and Resistance* serves as a testament to human resilience, suggesting that the quest for autonomy and justice is a permanent feature of the social order, perpetually challenging the reach of even the most expansive empires.

What You'll Find Inside:

• The moral economy of resistance: how ordinary people use everyday acts like grain riots, sabotage, and refusal to defend subsistence and challenge exploitative systems
• Frontier autonomies: how hill peoples, tribal communities, and borderlands maintain independence through geography, social structures, and deliberate evasion of state control
• Millenarian and prophetic movements: how spiritual beliefs, visions of renewal, and charismatic leaders transform economic grievances into large-scale uprisings across Asia and Africa
• The evolution of worker resistance: from Luddite machine-breaking to industrial unions, general strikes, and digital economy organizing against new forms of exploitation
• Indigenous sovereignty and land struggles: how communities from the Zapatistas to Standing Rock assert territorial rights, self-determination, and alternative governance against states and corporations

Who's It For:

This book is essential reading for students and scholars of history, political science, and sociology who seek to understand resistance movements from a global and historical perspective. It will particularly benefit activists and organizers looking to draw lessons from past struggles against states, empires, and exploitative systems. The work also appeals to general readers interested in social justice, anti-colonial movements, and how marginalized communities have asserted their dignity and autonomy throughout history.