“Provocative and engaging ... indispensable for those seeking to understand the malignancy and toxicity of US imperialism” Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776

“Skillfully details how radicalism and Black freedom struggles have been betrayed and diminished. This insightful book offers a clarity that is desperately needed in these times” Joy James, editor of Confronting Counterinsurgency

“Tells the story of a Black radical archive as it dismantles the perpetual counterinsurgency of US nation-building” Dylan Rodríguez, author of Counterinsurgency Machine

Since the founding of the United States, the white power structure has engaged in an unceasing effort to disorganize and sedate its Black population through incremental concessions and symbolic gestures.

Joshua Briond shows how these “colonial lullabies” have shaped the course of American history. Recontextualizing major historical events—from the Civil War through to the civil rights movement, the expansion of the carceral state and even the Obama presidency—he argues that each period produced distinct types of reform, all deployed to neutralize Black struggles and sustain white hegemony.

Taming the Revolution builds a schematic genealogy of the white power structures and their shapeshifting capacities. By addressing the political and cultural technologies of present-day neoliberal reformism—an ever-evolving toolkit of pacification, domestication and cooptation—Briond demystifies different forms of state and extra-state adaptation to the insurgencies of oppressed peoples.

Joshua Briond is a writer, and the co-founder and co-host of the podcast Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. He is a PhD student based between New York, Charlotte, and Chicago.