A.K. Thompson

Are you taking over, or are you taking orders? Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards? White riot—I wanna riot. White riot—a riot of my own. —The Clash, "White Riot" Ten years after the battle in Seattle sparked an historic struggle against the forces of multinational conglomeration and American imperialism, the anti-globalization generation is ready to reflect on a decade of organizing that changed the face of mass action around the globe. Scholar and activist AK Thompson revisits the struggles against globalization in Canada and the United States at the turn of the century, and he explores the connection between political violence and the white middle class. Equal parts sociological study and activist handbook, Black Bloc, White Riot engages with the key debates that arose in the anti-globalization movement over the course of the past direct or mass action? Summit-hopping or local organizing? Pacifism or diversity of tactics? Drawing on movement literature, contemporary and critical theory, and practical investigations, Thompson outlines the effect of the anti-globalization movement on the white, middle-class kids who were swept up in it, and he considers how and why violence must once again become a central category of activist politics. AK Thompson is a writer and activist living and working in Toronto, Canada. Currently completing his PhD in sociology at York University, Thompson teaches social theory and serves on the editorial committee of Upping the A Journal of Theory and Action . His publications include Sociology for Changing the Social Movements/Social Research (Fernwood Publishing, 2006).

Bringing together a decade of AK Thompson’s essays on the culture of revolt, Premonitions offers an engaged assessment of contemporary radical politics. Inspired by Walter Benjamin and addressing themes ranging from violence and representation to Romanticism and death, Thompson combines scholarship and grassroots grit to disabuse us of cherished certainties. Whether uncovering the unrealized promise buried in mainstream cultural offerings or tracing our course toward the moment of reckoning ahead, the essays in Premonitions are both practical investigations and provocations.