The City Is Ours: Squatting and Autonomous Movements in Europe from the 1970s to the Present

Squatters and autonomous movements have been in the forefront of radical politics in Europe for nearly a half-century—from struggles against urban renewal and gentrification, to large-scale peace and environmental campaigns, to spearheading the antiausterity protests sweeping the continent.

Through the compilation of the local movement histories of eight different cities—including Amsterdam, Berlin, and other famous centers of autonomous insurgence along with underdocumented cities such as Poznan and Athens—The City Is Ours paints a broad and complex picture of Europe’s squatting and autonomous movements.

Each chapter focuses on one city and provides a clear chronological narrative and analysis accompanied by photographs and illustrations. The chapters focus on the most important events and developments in the history of these movements. Furthermore, they identify the specificities of the local movements and deal with issues such as the relation between politics and subculture, generational shifts, the role of confrontation and violence, and changes in political tactics.

All chapters are written by politically-engaged authors who combine academic scrutiny with accessible writing. Readers with an interest in the history of the newest social movements will find plenty to mull over here. Contributors include Nazima Kadir, Gregor Kritidis, Claudio Cattaneo, Enrique Tudela, Alex Vasudevan, Needle Collective and the Bash Street Kids, René Karpantschof, Flemming Mikkelsen, Lucy Finchett-Maddock, Grzegorz Piotrowski, and Robert Foltin.

“One of the best books on squatting in English language. An immensely useful, wide-ranging, and insightful book about a fascinating part of radical history. PM Press has finally made it possible for American activists to understand the hidden history of housing.” —Andrej Grubacic, coauthor of Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

“This is a wonderful and important book. It makes key contributions to how we should think about squatting as well as how we should think about the best way to study social movements. Insightful, provocative, and educational, it provides a broad spectrum of cases and perspectives on squatter movements in Europe.” —Linus Owens, author of Cracking under Pressure


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