Product Description

When the first edition of Hope in the Dark was published in mid-2004 it gained an instant cult audience. Many readers were so inspired by Solnit's book that they bought multiple copies to give to friends. This new, significantly expanded edition covers, among other things, the political territory of America and the world after George Bush's re-election.

Acclaimed author Rebecca Solnit draws on her life as a writer and activist, on the events of our moment, on our deepest past, to argue for hope—hope even in the dark. Solnit reminds us of how changed the world has been by the activism of the past five decades. Offering a dazzling account of some of the least expected of those changes, she proposes a vision of cause-and-effect relations that provides new grounds for political engagement in the present. Counting historic victories—from the fall of the Berlin wall to the Zapatista uprising to Seattle in 1999 to the worldwide marches against war in Iraq to Cancun in September 2003—she traces the rise of a sophisticated, supple, nonviolent new movement that unites all the diverse and fragmentary issues of the eighties and nineties in our new century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197646 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781560258285
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
This slim volume, to quote the author's own reflections on the quincentennial of Columbus's discovery of America, is "a zigzag trail of encounters, reactions, and realizations." Solnit, recent winner of an NBCC award for criticism for River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, rambles from place to place and topic to topic in a discursive examination of the current state of leftist protest and activism. Unwilling to accept the bleak, almost apocalyptic worldview of many of her progressive counterparts, Solnit celebrates the hope and optimism that recent episodes reveal. She points to the resurrection of indigenous causes represented by Zapatismo, the WTO protests in Seattle and Cancun and the worldwide protests against the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and other smaller, more marginal protests. Solnit argues persuasively that engaged, thoughtful dissent is far healthier today than many believe. Activists, who operate by nature on the fringes of hierarchies of economy and power, often fail to recognize the power of activity that seems inconsequential. Her goal, in essence, is "to throw out the crippling assumptions with which many activists proceed." While Solnit's goal is admirable and her prose graceful, this book suffers from the same confusion and disorganization she recognizes as necessarily inherent to activism itself. Her examples are diverse yet disjointed; she is overly reliant on the words of others; and she often wanders into spiritual mumbo-jumbo and platitudes. While these tendencies hamper the clarity of her argument, fans of Solnit and progressives may find much to admire here.
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From Booklist
An inspired observer and passionate historian, Solnit, whose River of Shadows (2003) won a National Book Critics Circle Award, is one of the most creative, penetrating, and eloquent cultural critics writing today. In her most personal critique to date, she reflects on the crucial, often underrated accomplishments of grassroots activists. Solnit contemplates such well-studied revolutions as the American civil rights movement and the fall of the Berlin Wall, but more significantly she reflects on such recent events as successful protests against nuclear testing in Nevada, the Zapatista uprising, the anti-corporate globalization movement, the "unprecedented global wave of protest" against the war in Iraq, and such hopeful ecological successes as the return of wolves to Yellowstone and the restoration of the Los Angeles River. Solnit's rousing celebration of people who work tirelessly behind the scenes and courageously on the streets for justice and environmental health harmonizes beautifully with Studs Terkel's Hope Dies Last [BKL S 1 03], and helps readers understand more clearly where we stand as individuals, as Americans, and as citizens of the world. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Truly is a hopeful book
This is the perfect book for anyone working for social change who ever doubts whether their work is making a difference. Solnit's reflections provide a beautiful history of the unexpected victories that we win as we walk the road to a more just and sustainable world.

Salutory antidote to left pessimism
Rebecca Solnit brilliantly recasts the history of the last fifteen years as one of important progress and breakthroughs for the left (or those wishing for some sort of better world--at one point she dismisses the term 'left') by highlighting liberatory moments--the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Zapatista revolt, Seattle, the World Says No to War, even the period of reflection immediately after 9-11. She also does excellent work thinking through the impact of social movements, which, as she says, is often sideways and culturally transformative rather than the direct achievement of a goal. I love her idea that nonviolent civil disobedience is the great invention of the twentieth century, even as the atom bomb is the worst. In later chapters, she falls back on fashionable positions of US activists-the local over the global, concrete alternatives in the present rather than grand schemes for the future, etc.--rather than transcending these dichotomies, which is the spirit much of the book moves in. But I found the history portion revelatory enough that I still give it five stars.

Esperanza
This book came to my attention via a Sonoma State colleague who uses it for her ecopsychology class. It is not intended to lay out a particular activist approach or set of practices, but to recommend an attitude change from despair or nausea to hope. Elegantly written, it questions the extremes of optimistic denial and existential nausea by offering a collection of behind-the-scenes stories about how people who refused to give up brought a better future into being one brave action at a time. Great book for teachers wanting to encourage activism or social awareness in a time of unprecedented political and environmental crisis.