Hope in the Dark is an exploration of optimism in an era of seeming defeat and cultural pessimism. When the worldwide movement against war in Iraq failed to persuade the Bush administration against military action, many activists felt that their actions had been futile, their voices ignored. This book arises out of this moment, arguing millions marching against war did not constitute a failure, but a step toward success. Throwing out the crippling assumptions with which many activists proceed, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit proposes a new vision of how change happens. She counts historic victories that we have forgotten-from the fall of the Berlin war to the Zapatista uprising to Seattle in 1999 to Cancun in September 2003-tracing the rise of a sophisticated, supple, nonviolent new activism that unites all the diverse and fragmentary issues of the eighties and nineties. Hope in the Dark is an invitation to recognize the vast, inclusive, inchoate, nameless, wonderful movement that shut down the Seattle WTO, that marched by the tens of millions against war in Iraq, that has learned many lessons from the past and is making its own future, and ours, against empire, against violence, and against the multinationals.
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Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of sixteen books about environment, landscape, community, art, politics, hope, and memory. She is a contributing editor to Harper's and a frequent contributor to tomdispatch.com.
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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Softcover. Condition: Good. Hope in the Dark is an exploration of optimism in an era of seeming defeat and cultural pessimism. When the worldwide movement against war in Iraq failed to persuade the Bush administration against military action, many activists felt that their actions had been futile, their voices ignored. This book arises out of this moment, arguing millions marching against war did not constitute a failure, but a step toward success. Throwing out the crippling assumptions with which many activists proceed, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit proposes a new vision of how change happens. She counts historic victories that we have forgotten-from the fall of the Berlin war to the Zapatista uprising to Seattle in 1999 to Cancun in September 2003-tracing the rise of a sophisticated, supple, nonviolent new activism that unites all the diverse and fragmentary issues of the eighties and nineties. Hope in the Dark is an invitation to recognize the vast, inclusive, inchoate, nameless, wonderful movement that shut down the Seattle WTO, that marched by the tens of millions against war in Iraq, that has learned many lessons from the past and is making its own future, and ours, against empire, against violence, and against the multinationals. Seller Inventory # SONG1560255773
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