Paul Engler is a cofounder of the Momentum Training, which instructs hundreds of activists each year in the principles of effective protest. He is coauthor of a book on the craft of mass mobilization, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. He can be reached via the website www.thisisanuprising.org.
Mass uprisings like the one that brought down the Soviet bloc are neither as rare—nor as spontaneous—as they first appear.