Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of eighteen or so books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including the books Men Explain Things to Me and Hope in the Dark, both also with Haymarket; a trilogy of atlases of American cities; The Faraway Nearby; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at Harper's and a regular contributor to the Guardian.
"An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten,
and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout
ways."
-The New Yorker
"No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility,
peril and exuberance that's marked this new millennium. Rebecca
Solnit writes as independently as Orwell; she's a great muralist, a
Diego Rivera of words. Literary and progressive America is in a
Solnit moment, which given her endless talent should last a very
long time."
-Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Deep Economy
"Hope In the Dark changed my life. During a period of pervasive
cynicism and political despair, the first edition of this book
provided me with a model for activist engagement that I have held
dear ever since. Today, as movements for climate, racial, and
economic justice sweep the globe, its message is more relevant than
ever. In her inimitable and inspiring way, Solnit reminds us that
social change follows an unpredictable path. Despite all the
obstacles, we must not lose sight of the fact that profound
transformation is possible. This book's compact size belies its
true power. It provides succor and sustenance, fuel and fire, for
those fighting for a more just world."
-Astra Taylor, author, The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and
Culture in the Digital Age
"Rebecca Solnit is a national literary treasure: a passionate,
close-to-the-ground reporter with the soul and voice of a
philosopher-poet. And, unlike so many who write about the great
injustices of this world, she is an optimist, whose faith is deeply
grounded in a knowledge of history. This is a book to give you not
just hope but zest for the battles ahead."
-Adam Hochschild, author, King Leopold's Ghost
"Time and again she comes running towards you with a bunch of hopes
she has found and picked in the undergrowth of the times we are
living. And you remember that hope is not a guarantee for tomorrow,
but a detonator of energy for action today."
-John Berger, author, Ways of Seeing
"A slim, potent book penned in the wake of the Bush
administration's invasion of Iraq; a book that has grown only more
relevant and poignant in the decade since."
-Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
Praise for earlier editions:
"Seemingly lost in the woods of deceit and banality, bereft of
hope, we are confronted by Rebecca Solnit and her astonishing
flashlight. In a jewel of a book that is poetic in substance as
well as style, she reveals where we were, where we are and the
step-by-step advances that have been made in human rights, as we
stubbornly stumble out of the darkness."
-Studs Terkel
"In this inspired meditation on the very nature of action and the
reasons one thing leads to another, Rebecca Solnit, with her
customary intellectual penetration, freshness of expression, and
high elegance, finds new springs of hope in dark times."
-Jonathan Schell
"In this extraordinary book, Rebecca Solnit's prose grows poetic
wings that enable her to soar to a visionary height. The good news
that she brings back is that our struggles with persistence and
courage are indeed the seeds of kindness."
-Mike Davis
"Move over Joan Didion...Solnit is who Susan Sontag might have
become if Sontag had never forsaken California for Manhattan."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Can you imagine a cross between Joan Rivers and Simone de
Beauvoir? I didn't think so, but no likelier hybrid comes to
mind.... Solnit is the real activist deal: the type who gets
arrested at nuclear test sites and mans th
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