Synopses & Reviews
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 hopehope 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 victoriesfrom 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 2003she 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.
Review
"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
Review
"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 the barricades at the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle. She's also the real freelance intellectual deal: the much rarer type who earns her living generating reams of thoughtful, wide-ranging nonfiction." Newsday
Review
"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
About the Author
Rebecca Solnit's previous books include River of Shadows, Hollow City, As Eve Said to the Serpent, Savage Dreams and Wanderlust: A History of Walking. An activist and cultural historian, she writes about place, environment, politics and culture. Rebecca Solnit is the recipient of the Lannan literary award and lives in San Francisco. SHe is the winner of the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award.