Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

Saul Alinsky

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Jun 30, 2010 - Political Science - 224 pages

First published in 1971, Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky's impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - evenlake - LibraryThing

In a nutshell, Alinsky believes the end justifies the means. Not only that, but he believes one is acting irresponsibly if one does not use whatever means necessary to achieve what might be a greater ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - BillRob - LibraryThing

Not quite the "evil blueprint for the totalitarian takeover of America" that many on the right say it is. It is full of logical steps of how to organize the have-nots against the haves. Noting for the haves to win, they must gain support of the have-some and the have-more middle class.

Contents

• The Purpose: 3
• Of Means and Ends: 24
• A Word About Words: 48
• The Education of an Organizer: 64
• Communication: 81
• In the Beginning: 98
• Tactics: 126
• The Genesis of Tactic Proxy: 165
• The Way Ahead: 184

About the author

Saul Alinsky was born in Chicago in 1909 and educated first in the streets of that city and then in its university. Graduate work at the University of Chicago in criminology introduced him to the Capone gang, and later to Joliet State Prison, where he studied prison life. 
 
He founded what is known today as the Alinsky ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power. His work in organizing the poor to fight for their rights as citizens has been internationally recognized. In the late 1930s he organized the Back of the Yards area in Chicago (the neighborhood made famous in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle). Subsequently, through the Industrial Areas Foundation which he began in 1940, Mr. Alinsky and his staff helped to organize communities not only in Chicago but throughout the country. He later turned his attentions to the middle class, creating a training institute for organizers. He died in 1972.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
• Author: Saul Alinsky
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010
• ISBN: 0307756890, 9780307756893
• Length: 224 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Political Ideologies / Radicalism; Political Science / Political Process / Campaigns & Elections; Political Science / Political Process / Political Advocacy