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With Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argued that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next.Originally published in 2004, now with a new foreword and afterword, Solnit’s influential book shines a light into the darkness of our time in an unforgettable new edition.
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Haymarket Books; Updated ed. edition (March 15, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608465764
ISBN-13: 978-1608465767
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #29,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #25 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Ideologies & Doctrines > Radicalism #29 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Political Freedom #52 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Class
If you have any interest in writing, in the personal essay, in beautiful sentences, in thoughtful observations -- then you can't avoid Rebecca Solnit.She has created a genre all of her own, something very few writers can even dream of doing. It just isn't possible to write better than she does.She has made me fall in love with her mind. Her books reach deep into my world, turn things around, and make me see things differently. They make me different. Again, it's the very highest work that writing can ever do. I will always read anything she writes. The "subject" doesn't matter.She shows, with an almost magical eloquence that also remains natural and easy-flowing (organic), what writing is for, and just how much it can actually do. And she just gets better. She makes the world a better place.
Hope quickens when history is allowed to speak for itself, or better said, when writers like Solnit recall events that media experts miss seeing, or fail to see the significance of and, consistent with what the public presumably wants to read, often fail to report, and never on the front page.
Excellent - gives an uncommon perspective on activism as a journey rather than as an attempt to gain utopia. See activism as a failure when we don't reach all of our goals, keeps us from celebrating our successes, even when they are less than our goals, and this leaves us uninspired to continue what has been good work.
I love Solnit -- but this inspirational book is weakened by obvious and questionable political affinities (Was Hugo Chavez really good for Venezuela?).Otherwise this is an original mixtape of work from Viktor Frankl to Ursula K. Le Guin, from Thoreau to Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch to Vaclav Havel to Ghandi. And many more. She does a good job of not leaving out any of the usual suspects in the field, and pulling in a few more unusual ones, like Inuit writer, John Amagoalik, and a report on traumatic brain injury by the Rand Corporation.As someone who has researched deeply in the subject, I was both heartened by her commitment to political action in principle, but disheartened by it in practice. In 2016, when so much is at risk, I agree deeply with her that hope without action is empty, but I worry that she is squandering her considerable' credibility and authority as a writer by a kind liberal political obviousness. Nothing dates faster than politics -- but nothing is more eternal -- and necessary -- than hope.
Amazing. Ms. Solnit saved my soul with this book.
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