The stirring history of global student activism during the second
decade of the 21st century--up to and including the Black Lives Matter
movement and the extraordinary events of 2020.
Student resistance in the second decade of the 21st century has
increased in both quantity and quality, supercharged by social media, to
the point where it has become the single most powerful force for change
in the world today, embodying the hopes of hundreds of millions of
citizens to finally address climate change, the condition of women and
other major issues. Student resistance movements are the vanguard that
can jumpstart wider social movements that put governments on notice at a
time when corruption and stagnation plague democracies and authoritarian
regimes alike. In Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos, Book 2, Mark
Boren details the increasing technological sophistication of student
movements, as the stakes continue to rise and the movements grow ever
larger. With 1.5 billion students in the world, student activists today
use technology to turn local movements into national and international
ones. Armed with sophisticated communications and cell phone cameras to
record police violence, linked to websites for broadcasting and
encrypted apps for privacy, today's student activists have already done
much to stop genocide and ensure government reform or regime change in
scores of countries.
Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos, Book 2, is being published
simultaneously with Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos, Book 1,
1999-2009: Globalization, Human Rights, Religion, War, and the Age of
the Internet. Together, the two volumes present a complete and
unprecedented history of today's student activism phenomenon. As Mark
Boren writes, The explosion of protests in the world has shown us that
there are millions of people--many of them young and altruistic--who are
willing to stand up to forces of oppression, to risk their bodies, their
freedom, and their lives to make the future better than the past, and
that is humbling, inspiring, and hopeful for the future.
