Dissent: Book Traces 400 Years Of Protest, Progress In US
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Most views of American history trace the rise of power and politics.
But Temple University professor Ralph Young has long been interested in an opposite force: the history of dissent.
Young came of age as a college student in the tumultuous 1960s. His latest book is called Dissent: The History of an American Idea.
Young argues that dissent has shaped the nation's destiny from early Puritan days through the civil war, the civil rights era and the fight for gay marriage.
He sees more turbulence ahead as whites lose their hold on majority status and the 99 percent demand more of the nation's wealth.
Young in an interview at Temple this week says America was "born out of dissent." And he jokes that "Americans haven't shut up since."
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