I recommend this book to anyone who has had that gnawing feeling that something is not quite right in this country we love. Do you think the big corporations have too much power? Is the middle class disappearing? What did our founders really intend when they created the separation of powers? Did we lose control of our country...and how can we get it back? David Sirota writes about pockets of discontent that are beginning to bubble and boil all over the country. Small uprisings that are having an effect on corporations, in state policies, and in Congress. If you thought you were alone, read this book and find out that others are sharing your concern...in one way or another. This book will stir you up and widen your eyes. I learned so much from each chapter and had a good laugh or two along the way. David Sirota is a great writer who has his ear to the ground and shares his wealth of knowledge in this book. Read it.

You will learn something new from reading this book. David Sirota provides first hand accounts of populist movements around the US. I learned about the Working Family Party in New York and fusion. I also got a new perspective on Washington driven faux uprisings vs. real uprisings.

The book has a great mix of personal story and the uprising description. It has a good flow to it and is divided up into distinct sections. If you don't like a section - just skip it. I enjoyed reading all of it.

It starts out great, the chapter on "The Thrilla in Montana" was a joy to read. Then the book seems to slide, and about half way through I gave up. I just couldn't stay interested. The author, somewhere about halfway through the third chapter, loses sight of what the book title suggests the book is about. Maybe I am being dismissive, but with so many books on modern politics it takes a great book to get a good review from me. This isn't that book.

Well-written, better than "Hostile Takeover." You can tell now by reading this book that Sirota has more confidence in his writing style and isn't afraid to pepper his stories with a very human narrator, something that's important in titles like this where readers are given a very close-up look at a particular institution. The book is extremely informative (I had never even heard of "Third-Party Fusion" before reading this book, and now I want to know how I can bring it to Wisconsin!), and the intimate glimpses inside Washington and everywhere else shows readers various sides of issues that we don't normally see in the corporate press. I'm actually quite surprised to see another reviewer attack Sirota because of his chapter on the Minutemen on the border. I thought the chapter was actually quite fair, maybe TOO fair given how many of the people he meets seem to be struggling to hide their racism, but that's just one opinion. Either way, it's an intimate glimpse into a movement, just like every other chapter, and every chapter offers something we can learn from.

Excellent writers are like great chefs; you don't really need to know what they're writing/cooking to know you're in for a treat. In this case, we've got David Sirota riffing (and reporting) on how a bunch of "disconnected and atomized" rage is "frothing" in America.

Whether it's anti-illegal-immigrant vigilantes, frustrated high-tech workers, "blue chip revolutionaries," "Uprising Television" (or radio or blogs), netroots activists, the anti-tax movement or the anti-anti-tax movement, there certainly appear to be a lot of pissed off people out there in America today. Just look at polls that show 80%+ of people who feel the country's headed in the wrong direction. Look at the huge turnout in this year's presidential primaries -- particularly on the Democratic side -- and the upsurge in political energy being shown by people around the country. Look at the anger at the President, at the Congress, at many of our institutions.

The question is, does all this add up to a "populist uprising?" Even David Sirota is skeptical, but he certainly sees the potential for such an uprising, and apparently so does a nervous corporate American and insider political establishment. In the end, I'm not sure that Sirota has completely proved his thesis, that "the disparate pieces of this uprising are all part of one enraged backlash." However, after reading his well-written, well-researched, informative, and entertaining book, I'm far less likely to write off that thesis as a definite possibility in coming years.

A title such as "The Populists are Restless" would have been more fitting.
But, of course, the hope is that overstating the situation with the use of of the words "Uprising" and "Revolt" more books will be sold.

Technically well written; the facts notwithstanding. I guess I don't know what I was expecting really. An author comes to the border with a history of writing left leaning material and goes away with a hatchet job on a patriotic American effort. I should have known but then again the Minutemen have had more than 100 authors, TV crews, newspapers, filmmakers and documentarians visit Camp Vigilance in the last three years and not once did they come away with a negative impression. Even the most hard core liberal media resisted painting a negative picture after having met the participants and seen the destruction of our open borders first hand. Bastions of conservative thought like CNN, MSNBC and AL Jazeera. Wait a minute, there was that guy from the History Channel. He too had an agenda. So now there are two.

I'm just surprised David didn't say he got the idea to come visit us in particular in Chapter 1 entitled "A Portrait of the Writer Lying On The Bathroom Floor" where. as described so eloquently in the title, he was lying on the floor in a third tier Las Vegas hotel, puking his brains out after partying with his DailyKos buddies.

That this was a hatchet job is not even a question. Pretty obvious. His description of our members or the minimalistic language he used when describing our efforts. Simple things like calling our $20,000 communications system a CB (really David. A CB?) or pure fiction as he described sitting around the camp fire "drinking beers" with us. Wishful thinking perhaps but pure fiction nonetheless. Camp Vigilance doesn't allow alcohol. Never has.

He talks about the the tragedy of the poor Mexican worker uprooted by NAFTA but mentions nothing about the thousands of American ranchers terrorized each night by hordes of illegal aliens crossing their property, destroying everything in their path. He downplays the terrorist threat and scold us for having the audacity to want to protect our country from an invasion of epic proportions.

He tosses off our observing people speaking Arabic, waltzing across our unprotected border in the middle of the night as "folklore", unsubstantiated by Internet reports. The drug runs and "rape trees", yup, thats folklore as well. Mean spirited stories designed to recruit new members to our "failed" effort. The only thing failing here was David's objectivity though I'm sure the guys and gals at Berkeley will run out to buy a copy of The Uprising. He's their new hero, elevated from his role as "the midget in a twiki costume at a Buck Rogers Event (I have to admit that thread was very clever) to "Mr. Scott in the engine room of the Enterprise". Go forth an garner the praise of the lefties David. You have earned it.

I don't know what the other victims of David's pen have to say about his "unbiased" interpretation of their efforts. His psychoanalytical review of what makes a patriot tick is comical were it not so tainted with the language of a leftist elitist. Makes no difference to us. We'll pass around his book at our next meeting of "white, graying, fifty something men" [and women], this to ensure that our only investment in this drivel is the $17.95 I plopped down for it.

If David gets his way, the borders will be open, drugs will be legalized, we'll have a day labor center on every corner and we'll be singing the national anthem in Spanish. About the only thing he did get right were the last few words in his Chapter on the Minutemen. A quote from me [one of the few accurate quotes from me in the book] NOT ON MY WATCH!

The Populist Uprising has a long and rich history in this country, and in his new book noted author David Sirota demonstrates that this movement is alive and well (on both the Left and the Right) is alive and well. Sirota is a wonderful political writer who possesses that rare knack of being able to clearly outline his position without a lot of jargon that so plagues other political authors. Love him or hate him, Sirota has a lot to say, and this is one book that should be read by everyone.

Sirota's book is an excellent tour of the various Populist movements in American society. Highly entertaining and informative, Sirota's book gives an excellent portrait of various anti-Establishment movements simmering beneath the radar of public consciousness in the US. [...]