Strategic nonviolent action has reasserted itself as a potent force in shaping public debate and forcing political change. Whether it is an explosive surge of protest calling for racial justice in the United States or a demand for democratic reform in Hong Kong or Mexico, when mass movements erupt onto our television screens, the media portrays them as being as spontaneous and unpredictable. In This Is an Uprising, political analysts Mark and Paul Engler uncover the organization and well-planned strategies behind such outbursts of protest, examining core principles that have been used to spark and guide moments of transformative unrest.

This Is an Uprising traces the evolution of civil resistance, providing new insights into the contributions of early experimenters such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.; groundbreaking theorists such as Gene Sharp and Frances Fox Piven; and contemporary practitioners who have toppled repressive regimes. Drawing from discussions with activists now working to defend human rights, challenge corporate corruption, and combat climate change, the Englers show how people with few resources and little influence in conventional politics can nevertheless engineer momentous upheavals.