Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America

Challenging Authority argues that ordinary people exercise extraordinary political courage and power in American politics when, frustrated by politics as usual, they rise up in anger and hope and defy the authorities and the status quo rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives. By doing so, they disrupt the workings of important institutions and become a force in American politics. Drawing on critical episodes in American history, Frances Fox Piven shows that it is precisely at those seismic moments when people act outside of self-restricting political norms that they become empowered to their full democratic potential.

Author: Frances Piven
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 08/01/2008
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.70h x 6.10w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780742563162
ISBN10: 0742563162
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Political Ideologies | Democracy
- Political Science | Political Process | General
- Political Science | History & Theory | General

About the Author
Frances Fox Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate School at the City University of New York and past president of the American Sociological Association. She is the author of several books, including The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush's Militarism (2004) and Why Americans Still Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way (2000).