The Essential Mario Savio - by Robert Cohen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, California, was pivotal in shaping 1960s America. Led by Mario Savio and other young veterans of the civil rights movement, student activists organized what was to that point the most tumultuous student rebellion in American history. Mass sit-ins, a nonviolent blockade around a police car, occupations of the campus administration building, and a student strike united thousands of students to champion the right of students to free speech and unrestricted political advocacy on campus.

This compendium of influential speeches and previously unknown writings offers insight into and perspective on the disruptive yet nonviolent civil disobedience tactics used by Savio. The Essential Mario Savio is the perfect introduction to an American icon and to one of the most important social movements of the post-war period in the United States.

From the Back Cover

"This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the 1960s and how they changed American society. Insightfully contextualized by Robert Cohen, Mario Savio's letters and speeches chronicle the history of two key moments of that pivotal decade--the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement--and reveal Savio as an activist and thinker who helped inject new meanings into the idea of American freedom."--Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, author of The Story of American Freedom

"Robert Cohen has performed invaluable service by collecting, annotating, and contextualizing the letters and speeches of Mario Savio, leader of the now iconic Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964. The collection captures Savio's extraordinary eloquence and tactical brilliance, as well as his mission to convert the Berkeley campus into a space that would allow free speech about politics as well as ideas. The book is a tribute to Berkeley's role not just in launching the turbulent student protests of the 1960s, but in expanding the fundamental ideal of free speech, while also revealing some of the personal and institutional costs of the struggle."--Nicholas B. Dirks, Chancellor of the University of California

"This is an extremely important collection of primary materials from the youthful pondering of Mario Savio, a vitally important but little understood figure of the 1960s. The connections between activism in the South and activism on the Berkeley campus have never been more vividly expressed than in Savio's own words."--Paul Buhle, Brown University

"This powerful work deserves a wide reading. Mario Savio spoke with passion, clarity, and courage when he confronted injustice in Mississippi and again when he defied the suppression of free speech at the University of California. This well-edited introduction to the "essential" Savio is a boon to both scholarship and citizenship."--Lewis Perry, author of Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition

"Lucid and persuasive, Robert Cohen is a leading authority on the history of student activism in the United States, most particularly in the 1960s, and even more particularly, the events at UC Berkeley in the fall of 1964."--Maurice Isserman, Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of History at Hamilton College

About the Author

Robert Cohen is Professor of History and Social Studies in New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He is an affiliated member of NYU's History Department. His books include Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s, The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (coedited with Reginald E. Zelnik), and Rebellion in Black and White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s (coedited with David S. Snyder).

Tom Hayden is an American social and political activist, author, and politician. He was a founder of Students for a Democratic Society; the primary author of the SDS's manifesto, the Port Huron Statement; and a member of the California State Legislature for eighteen years. He is director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in Culver City, California.

Robert Reich was the U.S. Secretary of Labor in the Clinton adminstration. He is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lynne Hollander Savio is a Free Speech Movement veteran who coauthored the Rossman Report. She is the widow of Mario Savio and heads the board of directors of the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture and Young Activist Award.