cover image The People Rising: The Campaign Against the Bork Nomination

The People Rising: The Campaign Against the Bork Nomination

Michael Pertschuk. Thunder's Mouth Press, $24.95 (317pp) ISBN 978-0-938410-88-1

This useful and thought-provoking book dissects the grass-roots campaignthis sentence was unclear as to whether the book is about the strategy or the coalition--so changed to `campaign' to cover both that played a major role in felling the Supreme Court nominee by distributing Bork's past writings to upper case, no?pk Senators and citizenry,pk thus revealing him to be far from the mainstream of judicial thought. The authors, who conducted interviews with some pk 70 activists involved in the anti-Bork movement, focus on collective leadership rather than singling out charismatic individuals. Perhaps this approach reflects a more accurate view of history, but their extended pk coverage of the complex web of alliances between organizations pk at times turns the book into a catalogue of acronyms. However, this account of the campaign--including research, Senate lobbying, media methodology and grass-roots coordination--is detailed enough to serve as a manual on organizing any popular mobilization. The authors' sympathies are clearly with the coalition, which they convincingly portray as an influential and politically savvy opposition alliance that ultimately triumphed against considerable odds. The authors are both with the Advocacy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based organization devoted to disseminating information about citizen activism; Pertschuk is co-director and Schaetzel is a media strategist.How about (to answer gs's query)?: ``The authors are both with the Advocacy Institute, Washington D.C....; Pertschuck is co-director, Schaetzel is a media strategist.'' Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)