DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Punk Revolution!

An Oral History of Punk Rock Politics and Activism

John Malkin author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

Published:15th May '23

Should be back in stock very soon

Punk Revolution! cover

The most wide-ranging and provocative look at punk rock as a social change movement told through firsthand accounts.

Punk rock has been on the frontlines of activism since exploding on the scene in the 1970’s. Punk Revolution! is the most wide-ranging and provocative look at punk rock as a social change movement over the past forty-five years, told through firsthand accounts of roughly 250 musicians and activists.

John Malkin brings together a wide cast of characters that include major punk & post-punk musicians (members of The Ramones, Bad Religion, Crass, Dead Kennedys, Patti Smith’s band, Gang of Four, Sex Pistols, Iggy & the Stooges, Bikini Kill, Talking Heads, The Slits, and more), important figures influenced by the punk movement (Noam Chomsky, Kalle Lasn, Keith McHenry, Marjane Satrapi, Laurie Anderson, Kenneth Jarecke), and underground punk voices. These insightful, radical, and often funny conversations travel through rebellions against Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin and to punk activism that has taken on nuclear war, neoliberalism, modern warfare, patriarchy, white supremacy, the police, settler colonialism, and more.

The result is a fresh and unique history of punk throughout the ages.

Excellent and engrossing! It's a tribute to John Malkin's interview style that he's extracted such a range of people to dig deeper than, dare I say, most punk books—revealing not only factual histories but emotional positions. The book is a far-reaching reflection on the revolutionary nature of punk rock, its strengths, its failures, its impact, and its diversity—an inspiring overview that is both engaging and informative.

-- Dick Lucas, Subhumans and Citizen Fish

The book is very cool—full of great interviews. Like it.

-- Jon King, Gang of Four

The punk revolution might have been the most influential of all twentieth-century subcultures. John Malkin gets up close and personal with the seditious heroes behind rock’s most powerful socio-political movement.

-- Steven Blush, author and filmmaker, American Hard

ISBN: 9781538171721

Dimensions: 229mm x 161mm x 25mm

Weight: 617g

384 pages