One Week to Change the World: An Oral History of the 1999 WTO Protests

by DW Gibson Narrated by Cassandra Campbell, Danny Campbell, Jason Culp, Soneela Nankani, Leon Nixon, Ramón de Ocampo, Fred Sanders, Jackie Sanders

Overview

The definitive history of Seattle's 1999 World Trade Organization protests, featuring over 100 original interviews and timed to the event's twenty-fifth anniversary.

One week in late 1999, more than 50,000 people converged on Seattle. Their goal: to shut down the World Trade Organization conference and send a message that working-class people would not quietly accept the runaway economic globalization that threatened their livelihoods. Though their mission succeeded, it was not without blowback. Violent confrontations between police and protestors resulted in hundreds of arrests and millions of dollars in property damage. But the images of tear gas and smashed windows that flashed across TVs and newspapers were not an accurate representation of what actually happened that week.

In the oral history One Week to Change the World, award-winning journalist DW Gibson pieces together a complex and compelling account of what really went down in Seattle, immersing you in the angst that defined the end of a millennium, complete with fight clubs and Y2K doomsday scenarios. In more than 100 original interviews with protestors, police, politicians, anarchists, artists, activists, union members, and many others, Gibson reconstructs the events in gripping detail; documents its antecedents and aftermath; and shows how so many of its themes remain just as pressing today, including the vitalness and difficulty of grassroots activism, the aspirations and limitations of globalization, the militarization of policing, the sensationalism of the media, and the undeniable power of the people.

Timed to the 25th anniversary of the protests, this book is a page-turning drama, an essential history, and a practical handbook for how to make one's voice heard.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Reads like a political thriller.” —Chandler Dandrige, Jacobin

"Put aside what you know about the 'Battle of Seattle' and pick up this exciting, myth-busting account. Essential for activists and organizers."
—Malcolm Harris, author of Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

"This jigsaw puzzle of voices brings to life this turning point in the consolidation of world capital and the players who saw it coming. DW Gibson draws on an unpredcitably wide range of personalities and perspectives to capture the events and illuminate their meaning."
—Sarah Schulman, author of the Lambda Literary Award winner Let the Record Show: A Political History of Act Up New York, 1987-1993

"A readable, provocative study of globalism and anti-globalism in conflict."
—Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2024-04-20
A fly-on-the-wall history of a fateful gathering of capitalist trade ministers in 1999.

What is the World Trade Organization? By some lights, it’s a group that makes sure that international business plays by the rules. By others, it’s a means by which the major capitalist powers keep the developing world on a string. As Gibson, author of 14 Miles and The Edge Becomes the Center, recounts, representatives from a host of nations came to Seattle seeking to lock down an agenda that would make the “Quad”—the European Union, the U.S., Japan, and Canada—de facto rulers of the global economy. Thousands came to protest. Says one leading anti–WTO organizer of those street actions, “For people within the U.S. to break from the idea that Americans support their government’s corporate globalization policies was a big shift in how the world saw things.” The police had a different view, but some were less inclined to bust skulls and haul protestors off to jail than others. Similarly, Gibson reveals, some protestors were looking for an excuse to break things, while most, as one government worker related, “were the model kids—if you had a teenager, how you would want them to be.” A labor council leader was even more conciliatory: “This is what democracy looks like. Sometimes it’s ugly. And sometimes it’s not. We all have a responsibility and role to play, one way or the other.” Interestingly, Gibson records, several organizers from the day lament that, today, social media keeps people from banding together in person, even as governments learned a lesson and now maintain deep cordons between WTO meetings and any possible discontents—who, notes one contributor, now run the risk of being “viewed as a Trumpist in some way” for opposing so-called free trade.

A readable, provocative study of globalism and anti-globalism in conflict.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160120171
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/18/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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