Review by C.J. Bunce
It’s a new year. Have you made any resolutions yet? If you’ve ever wanted to support a cause and couldn’t figure out a practical way to actually make a difference, a new field guide will get you started. It’s Road Map for Revolutionaries, a step-by-step approach to getting from an idea to actually having an impact. If you’re tired of inaction and just talk, you need to know the rules of change and how to navigate them. Pick a cause–anything you view strongly–then read through the book with an eye toward getting more involved. Written by cause advocates Elisa Camahort Page, Carolyn Gerin, and Jamia Wilson, readers can approach their participation from any number of strategic angles.
Knowing the laws and regulations that apply is a key first step. The authors provide an extensive section on protests and civil disobedience, where your rights extend and the limits of those rights–how to raise awareness, how to meet, lobby, and influence representatives, basics on asserting economic pressure to achieve change via boycotts, buycotts, and divestments, and understanding the role shareholders can take to influence corporate responsibility. Roughly a third of the book keys in on how you can work to update institutions that are not keeping up with changing times.
For some Road Map for Revolutionaries will be a refresher on high school Government and Economics classes, for others it can be a first step into navigating into a more civic role personally. Understanding the role of social media today, understanding modern terms that weren’t used even a few years ago–all of these ideas will update even those who consider themselves lifelong policy advocates. It would make a good companion to last year’s The Encyclopedia of Misinformation (reviewed here at borg), another handbook for navigating a quick-paced, tech driven world.
