Inspired by the catalytic role pamphlet publishing has played throughout American history, Greg Ruggiero founded the Open Media Series in 1991 as an act of war protest, as well as an act of solidarity with social movements promoting greater freedom, justice, and democracy.
Over the years, Ruggiero has published some of the most outspoken scholars, social justice advocates, artists, and dissidents of our time, including Noam Chomsky, Angela Y. Davis, Howard Zinn, Arundhati Roy, Ralph Nader, Alice Walker, Manning Marable, Tanya Reinhart, John Cage, Keith Haring, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Daniel Ellsberg, Michio Kaku, Helen Caldicott, Bill Ayers, Subcomandante Marcos, and the Dalai Lama.
In the spring of 2006, Ruggiero joined the ranks of the City Lights editorial team. The launch of the City Lights Open Media Series marked a new chapter in the publishing of intelligent, inspiring, and potentially radicalizing books. Among the recent and forthcoming titles in the series are A Power Governments Cannot Suppress by Howard Zinn; Spying on Democracy by Heidi Boghosian; A New Critical Edition of Frederick Douglass's Narrrative of a Slave by Angela Y. Davis; Dying to Live by Joseph Nevins; Mexico Unconquered by John Gibler; Mumia Abu-Jamal's Writing on the Wall, edited by Johanna Fernandez; Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton; and Because We Say So by Noam Chomsky. "The heart of a functioning democracy is public engagement, communication, and intelligence," says Ruggiero. "The mission of the series is to increase all three."
"An operation out to change the world" – Evelyn Nieves, The New York Times
"Like Tom Paine or Martin Luther, the Open Pamphlet Series desperately wants to create democratic debate by providing timely snippets of information and analysis that the empire would just as soon suppress. They're a quick read, and in a time of intellectual as well as political crisis, they put serious information into the hands and minds of a needy public… 'Public intelligence is power,' says Ruggiero, and he's determined to disseminate both." – James Ledbetter, The Village Voice
An eye-opening critique of how America's drift toward authoritarian intolerance is dividing the nation and intensifying social and political conflicts.
Now Available! A Thomas Paine-style indictment of how wealthy corporations control politics and how average Americans, through democracy, can fight back and win. October tour stops in D.C., Santa Cruz, the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle!
Under the Affluence
Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America
Tim Wise
A scalding indictment of how the wealthy influence the national economy, politics, and media to disadvantage those already less fortunate.
Direct from City Lights: An essay-pamphlet by Mumia Abu-Jamal on ending police violence, a companion to the book Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writing of Mumia Abu-Jamal
New Release: Mumia Abu-Jamal's essential perspectives on black experience, race relations, freedom, justice, social change, and the future of American society. With a foreword by Cornel West.
Fast-paced frontline reporting and analysis on the militaristic spread of the U.S. Border Patrol. "What Jeremy Scahill was to Blackwater, Todd Miller is to the U.S. Border Patrol!"--Tom Miller, author, On the Border
Spying on Democracy
Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance
Heidi Boghosian
"Everyone of us is under the omniscent magnifying glass of the government and corporate spies. How do we respond to this smog of surveillance? Start by reading Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian."—Bill Moyers
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