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The City Is Ours
The City Is Ours

The City Is Ours

Squatting and Autonomous Movements in Europe from the 1970s to the Present

Edited by Bart van der Steen, Edited by Ask Katzeff, Edited by Leendert van Hoogenhuijze, Foreword by George Katsiaficas, Foreword by Geronimo

POLITICAL SCIENCE

336 Pages, 6 x 9

Formats: Trade Paper, Mobipocket, EPUB, PDF

Trade Paper, $21.95 (US $21.95) (CA $24.95)

Publication Date: September 2014

ISBN 9781604866834

Rights: WOR X UK & EUR

PM Press (Sep 2014)

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Overview

Squatters and autonomous movements have been at the forefront of radical politics in Europe for nearly a half-century—from struggles against urban renewal and gentrification, to large-scale peace and environmental campaigns, to spearheading the antiausterity protests sweeping the continent. Through an examination of the local history of these movements in eight different cities—including Amsterdam, Berlin, and other famous centers of autonomous insurgence, along with underdocumented cities such as Poznan and Athens—The City Is Ours paints a broad and complex picture of Europe’s squatting and autonomous movements. Each chapter focuses on one city and provides a clear chronological narrative and analysis accompanied by photographs and illustrations. The sections center on the most important events and developments in the history of these movements, identifying the specificities of the local movements and dealing with issues such as the relation between politics and subculture, generational shifts, the role of confrontation and violence, and changes in political tactics. The contributors are all politically engaged authors who combine academic scrutiny with accessible writing, providing a clear and engaging view of important contemporary social movements.

Reviews

"One of the best books on squatting in the English language. An immensely useful, wide-ranging, and insightful book about a fascinating part of radical history."  —Andrej Grubacic, coauthor, Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

"This is a wonderful and important book. It makes key contributions to how we should think about squatting as well as how we should think about the best way to study social movements. Insightful, provocative, and educational, it provides a broad spectrum of cases and perspectives on squatter movements in Europe."  —Lynn Owens, author, Cracking under Pressure: Narrating the Decline of the Amsterdam Squatters' Movement

"The women and men who organized and occupied the squats in this movement believed that one could change the greater world by intentionally changing the nature of their own daily lives to lives that emphasized anti-capitalist and communitarian values." —Ron Jacobs, counterpunch.org

"The collection is valuable both for the information it provides on this important social-political movement from the late 1960s to the present day and as an example of 'committed scholarship'—no attempt is made to understand or justify the legal (or moral) claims of property owners and developers." —T.R. Weeks, CHOICE

"A fascinating mosaic of urban squatting and autonomous politics in Europe since the 1970s." —Geoff Eley, networks.h-net.org

Author Biography

Bart van der Steen completed his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence, where he studied the squatter and autonomous movements in Amsterdam and Hamburg during the 1980s. Ask Katzeff is a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, where he focuses on the interaction between urban development and squatting in Europe from the 1970s onward. Leendert van Hoogenhuijze is the coeditor of the Dutch socialist annual Kritiek. George Katsiaficas is a longtime activist for peace and justice who has twice been granted Fulbright fellowships. He is the author or editor of 11 books, including The Imagination of the New Left; Latino Social Movements: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives; Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party; The Subversion of Politics; and Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views. He lives in the Boston area. Geronimo is the pen name of an activist for the German autonomous movement. He is the author of Fire and Flames: A History of the German Autonomist Movement.