Solidarity : The Past, Present, and Future of a World-changing Idea

A VULTURE BEST BOOK • From renowned organizers and activists Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor, comes the first in-depth examination of Solidarity—not just as a rallying cry, but as potent political movement with potential to effect lasting change.

A DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST

“A window into what is possible when we reject the politics of division, trade individualism for interconnectedness and prioritize coming together for the greater good.”—Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone

"Reads at once like a moral treatise and a rallying manifesto, a call to reflect and lock arms.”—The Washington Post

Solidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Here, two leading activists and thinkers survey the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class to ask: how can we build solidarity in an era of staggering inequality, polarization, violence, and ecological catastrophe? Offering a lively and lucid history of the idea—from Ancient Rome through the first European and American socialists and labor organizers, to twenty-first century social movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter—Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor trace the philosophical debates and political struggles that have shaped the modern world.

Looking forward, they argue that a clear understanding of how solidarity is built and sustained, and an awareness of how it has been suppressed, is essential to warding off the many crises of our present: right-wing backlash, irreversible climate damage, widespread alienation, loneliness, and despair. Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor insist that solidarity is both a principle and a practice, one that must be cultivated and institutionalized, so that care for the common good becomes the central aim of politics and social life.

LEAH HUNT-HENDRIX was born and raised in New York City. She has a PhD in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Princeton University where she wrote her dissertation on the Ethics of Solidarity. Leah has founded multiple organizations that have impacted the American politicallandscape. In 2012, she co-founded Solidaire, a national network of philanthropists dedicated to funding progressive movements, and in 2017, she co-founded Way to Win, a network with a similar structure, this time dedicated to electoral strategy. Both organizations are grounded in building solidarity between major donors and grassroots organizing. 
ASTRA TAYLOR is cofounder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors. She is the director of numerous documentaries and the author of The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, and The People’s Platform (winner of an American Book Award), among other works. Her writing has appeared in periodicals including The New Yorker, The New York Times, n+1, and The Baffler. She is an advisor to Lux Magazine and is on the editorial board of Hammer & Hope. She was the 2023 CBC Massey Lecturer.