"An essential and galvanizing on-the-ground account of how oxygen suddenly and miraculously flooded back into the American brain." Jonathan Lethem
"[Occupying Wall Street] runs through OWS' beginnings and provides a fascinating look at how Zucotti Park functioned, the disagreements and difficulties in running the community, and contains first-hand accounts of some of its most dramatic moments. Part souvenir, part how-to guide, this is a remarkable and unique book." The Huffington Post
For two months this fall, Zuccotti Park was the site of an extraordinary political action. Home to the hundreds of anti-capitalist protestors, the park became a communion of sharing and consensus in the heart of a citadel defined by greed and oligarchy.
In the early hours of Tuesday, November 15, the occupiers' camp was destroyed when police swept suddenly into the square. But if the occupation at Zuccotti was destroyed that night, the movement it spawned across America has only just begun.
Occupying Wall Street draws on extensive interviews with those who took part in the action to bring an inside-the-square history to life. In a vivid narrative, the key events of the occupation are described, and woven throughout are stories of daily life in the square focusing on how the kitchen, library, media center, clean-up, hospital, and General Assembly functioned, all in the words of the people who were there.
Writers for the 99% is a group of writers and researchers active in supporting Occupy Wall Street who came together to create this book.
A.J. Bauer is a writer and former journalist based in New York. His work has appeared in The Daily Texan (which he used to edit), the Austin American-Statesman, the Texas Observer, The Patriot Ledger, theBoston Globe, Social Text Periscope and The Guardian. A member of the Writers for the 99% collective, he contributed to Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America (OR Books, 2011; Haymarket, 2012). He also served on the board of directors of the Student Press Law Center from 2006-2012, and co-founded the Friends of the Daily Texan in 2013.
He is presently a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellow and doctoral candidate in theDepartment of Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University, where he researches contemporary and historical right-wing movements and conservatism in the United States. His dissertation, “Before Fair & Balanced: Conservative Media Activism and the Rise of the New Right,” is a historical study attendant to debates in media studies and American political development.
Christine Baumgarthuber writes The Austerity Kitchen blog at the New Inquiry—where the alimentary is elementary. Her work has been featured by Dissent, Lapham's Quarterly Roundtable, MAX JOSEPH and Bon Appétit, and she has appeared on Heritage Radio Network's A Taste of the Past. She can be reached at theausteritykitchen [at] gmail [dot] com. Jed Bickman is a writer living in Brooklyn. He is currently a graduate student in Nonfiction Writing at The New School, and an intern at The Nation. His writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Counterpunch, Creative Nonfiction, Ashe Journal, and The Commotion. He maintains a blog at www.jedbickman.com.Writers for the 99% was a group of writers and researchers, active in supporting Occupy Wall Street, who came together to create this book.
Publication date: April 3, 2012