Globalization from Below: Transnational Activists and Protest Networks. By Donatella della Porta, Massimiliano Andretta, Lorenzo Mosca, and Herbert Reiter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. 300p. $75.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics. By Francesca Polletta. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 242p. $45.00 cloth, $19.00 paper.

While different in scope and intent, both books offer a refreshing and uplifting sense of the capacity and willingness of people to protest conditions in society, or the world, which they deem unjust. The authors may not have set out to highlight idealism in political activism, but they ended up doing so.