A year after the massive protests over Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining bill, the first books on the phenomenon are starting to emerge. First out of the gate was It Started in Wisconsin: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest.
The book is edited by historians and Madison residents Mari Jo Buhle and Paul Buhle, and published by Verso, an imprint of New Left Books. It's a collection of eyewitness reports and essays by activists and reporters, including filmmaker Michael Moore, John Nichols of The Capital Times and The Nation, and The Progressive's Matt Rothschild and Ruth Conniff. A reading is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 28, at the Goodman Community Center.
Nichols is also author of How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest from Madison to Wall Street, just out from Nation Books, an imprint of the Perseus Books Group. And in March 2013, the University of Wisconsin Press will publish a behind-the-scenes look at the events that unfolded at the Capitol by reporters Jason Stein and Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.