The Struggle Within is an accessible historical primer about mass imprisonment as a tool of repression deployed against diverse left-wing social movements over the last 50 years. Berger examines many dynamic social movements across half a century: black liberation, Puerto Rican independence, Native American sovereignty, Chicano radicalism, white antiracist and working-class mobilisations, pacifist and antinuclear campaigns and earth liberation and animal rights. Berger's encyclopaedic knowledge of American social movements provides a rich comparative history.