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lmsmango's review against another edition
4.0
Rebecca Solnit does a very ambitious undertaking here, but her prose always delivers. I particularly enjoyed the chapters where she makes a solid case for grassroots movements - and how laying out the groundwork for a broader coalition, rather than treating social issues as isolated cases, should be the path we take moving forward. The essays themselves are more meditative than prescriptive, informed by her experiences as an activist and by people's stories on the ground. She deftly avoids the narrative of resilience and instead points towards how hope is an act of defiance, all the while criticizing the institutions that have made survival necessary in the first place. Was thinking of Freire the entire time. :)
On another note, it's pretty... insightful to scroll through reviews of this, particularly on the (negative) reviews that were hoping for some sort of concrete resolution. (Which is to miss the point entirely.) I understand the frustrations of having a lack of an answer here, especially as a person from the global south. But it's pretty baffling to expect Solnit as having the answers for those Big Questions when she spends the entire time talking about the struggles of others and encouraging her readers to take up responsibility - not to feel good, but to feel powerful - in a world that continuously strives to silence us.
So maybe I'll just leave this note from her own afterword: "And then there were my people, middle-class white people. It was as though many of us didn’t know how to be this other kind of person, this person who could speak of big dreams, of high ideals, of deep emotions, as though something more small-scale and sarcastic was the reduced version of self that remained to us. I've had great visionary companions the past dozen years from many places and races, but I've met so many of my kind who are attached for various reasons to their limits and their misery." :)
On another note, it's pretty... insightful to scroll through reviews of this, particularly on the (negative) reviews that were hoping for some sort of concrete resolution. (Which is to miss the point entirely.) I understand the frustrations of having a lack of an answer here, especially as a person from the global south. But it's pretty baffling to expect Solnit as having the answers for those Big Questions when she spends the entire time talking about the struggles of others and encouraging her readers to take up responsibility - not to feel good, but to feel powerful - in a world that continuously strives to silence us.
So maybe I'll just leave this note from her own afterword: "And then there were my people, middle-class white people. It was as though many of us didn’t know how to be this other kind of person, this person who could speak of big dreams, of high ideals, of deep emotions, as though something more small-scale and sarcastic was the reduced version of self that remained to us. I've had great visionary companions the past dozen years from many places and races, but I've met so many of my kind who are attached for various reasons to their limits and their misery." :)
rebecanunez's review against another edition
4.0
Un libro para esos momentos en donde uno pierde la fe en la humanidad. Muy interesante y creo que esta al alcance de la comprensión de cualquiera. Para volver a leer cada tanto.
harridansstew's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this and plan to reread it immediately to go over the sections about hope vs. cynicism.
rosietomyn's review against another edition
2.0
Having followed Rebecca Solnit for years, and having thoroughly enjoying so many of her works, I am baffled by how little I connected to this one. Hope in the Dark, even with its brief 2016 update, feels disjointed and dated. I found it more depressing than hopeful.
pattydsf's review against another edition
4.0
“To hope is to gamble. It's to bet on your futures, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.”
“Your opponents would love you to believe that it's hopeless, that you have no power, that there's no reason to act, that you can't win. Hope is a gift you don't have to surrender, a power you don't have to throw away.”
“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.”
This short collection of essays was first published in 2004. Solnit then updated this book with additional information and essays in 2016, before the election of our present President. I am including this information in my review to remind me that all was not rosy before 2016. We have had bad government before and we will have it again. However, we all need reminders that hope is worth having and Solnit’s writings gives me that hope.
I use the word “hope” a lot. I tell friends that I hope they are well, that they have a happy birthday, and other good things. It is a word that I have trouble finding a synonym for. The thesaurus connected to the Word software includes the following words as synonyms: confidence, expectation, optimism and faith. These words are good, but don’t have the resonance of “hope”, in my opinion.
Solnit’s essays help me remember why I like the word “hope” and why we need to keep hoping that things will improve. I am especially glad for her reminder that we cannot accomplish everything at once and we are making headway in changing the world to be a more just and compassionate place.
If you are struggling with the present administration in DC or a local political problem, like our issues with pipelines in Virginia, I strongly urge you to pick up these essays. Solnit does not solve all our problems, but she gives us courage to keep working towards a better future.
“Your opponents would love you to believe that it's hopeless, that you have no power, that there's no reason to act, that you can't win. Hope is a gift you don't have to surrender, a power you don't have to throw away.”
“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.”
This short collection of essays was first published in 2004. Solnit then updated this book with additional information and essays in 2016, before the election of our present President. I am including this information in my review to remind me that all was not rosy before 2016. We have had bad government before and we will have it again. However, we all need reminders that hope is worth having and Solnit’s writings gives me that hope.
I use the word “hope” a lot. I tell friends that I hope they are well, that they have a happy birthday, and other good things. It is a word that I have trouble finding a synonym for. The thesaurus connected to the Word software includes the following words as synonyms: confidence, expectation, optimism and faith. These words are good, but don’t have the resonance of “hope”, in my opinion.
Solnit’s essays help me remember why I like the word “hope” and why we need to keep hoping that things will improve. I am especially glad for her reminder that we cannot accomplish everything at once and we are making headway in changing the world to be a more just and compassionate place.
If you are struggling with the present administration in DC or a local political problem, like our issues with pipelines in Virginia, I strongly urge you to pick up these essays. Solnit does not solve all our problems, but she gives us courage to keep working towards a better future.
andrewotey's review against another edition
4.0
Lots of really good stuff in here. Some of the language gets a little too leftist extreme in places, even for me, but the overall message is one I really think is great: take wins where you can and then keep fighting for more. Solnit does a great job of calling people to action while also critiquing some of the puritanical aspects of many progressive activists. She originally wrote it in 2004 after the Iraq invasion and GWB's re-election, which to her felt like a helpless time (much like 2016 does to me). A passage that nicely illustrates this: “People have always been good at imagining the end of the world, which is much easier to picture than the strange sidelong paths of change in a world without end.” 4.5 stars
susannareads's review against another edition
4.0
Wonderful and important ideas, but this book is not for everyone. The language can be convoluted, and as much as I love Solnit, she assumes a lot about her reader's knowledge of global politics and activist movements. This book is not super accessible and is not exactly fun to read, but it taught me a lot and galvanized my fighting spirit.
fragglerocker's review against another edition
4.0
I forgot how challenging I find Solnit's prose and this is why it took me so long to finish this book. I'd recommend it if you'd like an alternative perspective on how to think about being as a leftist or liberal. My favorite chapter/essay was the one detailing the incredible kindness and community of the survivors of September 11 on that fateful day. It's so important to be aware of the thousands of small positive changes that make the world a better, more equitable place, while also continuing to work for larger changes.
A few choice quotes:
"[H]istory is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension."
"The only story many leftists know how to tell is the story that is the underside of the dominant culture's story, more often than the stuff that never makes it into the news, and all news had a bias in favor of suddenness, violence, and disaster that overlooks groundwells, sea changes, and alternatives, the forms in which popular power most often manifests itself. Their gloomy premise is that the powers that be are not telling you the whole truth, but the truth they tell is also incomplete. They conceive of the truth as pure bad news, appoint themselves the delivers of it, and keep telling it over and over again. Eventually, they come to look for the downside in any emerging story, even in apparent victories--and in each other: something about this task seems to give some of them the souls of meter maids and dogcatchers."
And finally,
"Violence is the power of the state; imagination and nonviolence the power of civil society."
A few choice quotes:
"[H]istory is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension."
"The only story many leftists know how to tell is the story that is the underside of the dominant culture's story, more often than the stuff that never makes it into the news, and all news had a bias in favor of suddenness, violence, and disaster that overlooks groundwells, sea changes, and alternatives, the forms in which popular power most often manifests itself. Their gloomy premise is that the powers that be are not telling you the whole truth, but the truth they tell is also incomplete. They conceive of the truth as pure bad news, appoint themselves the delivers of it, and keep telling it over and over again. Eventually, they come to look for the downside in any emerging story, even in apparent victories--and in each other: something about this task seems to give some of them the souls of meter maids and dogcatchers."
And finally,
"Violence is the power of the state; imagination and nonviolence the power of civil society."