Streitmatter tells the stories of dissident American publications and press movements of the last two centuries, and of the colorful individuals behind them. From publications that fought for the disenfranchised to those that promoted social reform, Voices of Revolution examines the abolitionist and labor press, black power publications of the 1960s, the crusade against the barbarism of lynching, the women's movement, and antiwar journals. Streitmatter also discusses gay and lesbian publications, contemporary on-line journals, and counterculture papers like The Kudzu and The Berkeley Barb that flourished in the 1960s. Voices of Revolution also identifies and discusses some of the distinctive characteristics shared by the genres of the dissident press that rose to prominence—from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century.

For far too long, mainstream journalists and even some media scholars have viewed radical, leftist, or progressive periodicals in America as "rags edited by crackpots." However, many of these dissident presses have shaped the way Americans think about social and political issues.