A review by robynne
History Teaches Us to Resist: How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times by Mary Frances Berry

4.0

Berry gives readers and insider's and outsider's perspective on the impact of protest in changing domestic and foreign policy in the US. As an historian, she uses evidence to provide good analysis of where and when protest movements worked effectively or not. From an insider's perspective, as a participant in protest movements as well as former chair on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, she works through protest movements chronologically focussing on one administration at a time. To that end, it is unfortunate that she didn't analyse the Obama administration. Certainly the book is timely in light of protests against President Trump (and this book was released just a week before the March for our Lives protest with its global impact), but to jump from George W. Bush to Donald Trump without any focus on Obama misses an important opportunity. Yes, Obama was the progressive and friendly president. But he, too, is a complicated man and his legacy should not be glossed over.