Histories of our long era of neoliberal/conservative ascendancy have tended to overlook or at least to undervalue stories of resistance to that new order of things. The great virtue of Dawson Barrett’s book is that it helps right that balance. The Defiant encompasses a great range of protest movements. Some were quite locally focused, like the struggle to block the construction of the Mt. Graham observatory at the University of Arizona by those concerned with its threat to the environment (a fight that was ultimately lost when the Clinton administration allowed the project to proceed). Another case study looks at politically minded punk rock and graffiti artists’ attempts to reclaim public space in New York and Berkeley. Actions in the Pacific Northwest by local environmental groups aimed at thwarting the destruction of the region’s forests featured confrontations with lumber companies, sometimes their workers, and the US Forestry Service.
The Defiant...
