As you may know, I just completed my new book, entitled The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. Many of you have been asking me when my new book is officially scheduled for release, so I wanted to let you know we have set a formal launch date of May 27, 2008. We are also releasing the book's cover this week, which you see above. The book is now available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Powell's, or through your local independent bookstore. For a high-resolution media-ready photo of the book's cover, click here.
The book takes a look at the populist movement building on both the Right and Left far away from the glare of the national media spotlight. It is much different from my last book in that it is investigative, firsthand narrative journalism - all brand new material, rather than analysis/synthesis of information already available. I tried to write a book that is engaging both for political junkies and non-political junkies - and that's why this book is much more novel-like than a typical political book.
Among other places, my travels took me to New York city for a behind-the-scenes look at Lou Dobbs Tonight; Redmond, Washington to accompany union organizers at Microsoft's headquarters; Dallas to join shareholder activists planning resolutions at the ExxonMobil stockholder meeting; Helena, Montana to witness a groundbreaking tax fight in the Montana legislature; Washington, D.C. to shadow three U.S. Senators (Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester); Las Vegas and Chicago to attend YearlyKos Conventions; Boulevard, California to camp out with the California Minutemen; Meriden, Connecticut to explore the Ned Lamont for Senate campaign; and Albany to study the most powerful third party in America.
At the same time all of this was going on, my wife and I moved from Montana to Denver, my nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column launched, I joined the Campaign for America's Future as a fellow, and I continued my long-running work with the Progressive States Network, Credo Action and In These Times. So, needless to say, it was an exhausting - and exhilarating - experience, and I am just now trying to reconstruct a semblance of a regular life and routine (and I apologize if I haven't been in better touch with many of you).
Already, I have received my first back-of-the-book blurb, from bestselling environmental author Bill McKibben. "This book engages in the nearly lost art of reporting to tell us what's going on in the many places that the elite media can't be bothered to look," he wrote. "It chronicles just how fed up Americans have become, and nominates a few heroes for them to turn to. It cheered me a good deal to read how many Americans are finally starting to fight back against the rule of greed that has been our lot for too many years."
I am busy planning the book launch and subsequent tour. My last book took me to about 40 cities, and I expect this to take me to as many, and probably more. If you have ideas or thoughts on specific events I should do or groups I should reach out to, please send those ideas my way at ds@davidsirota.com.
Obviously, I hope to see many of you on the tour this summer. My wife, Emily, will be traveling with me for much of it, and I expect so will Monty, our dog. It should be a great adventure - and it will be great to meet and catch up with as many of you as possible.
UPDATE: In response to a reader's question, the answer is no, Monty will not be traveling Mitt Romney-style.