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tweedsuitcase's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
lenabrary's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
4.0
finalgirlfall's review against another edition
4.0
another part of the puritan legacy is the belief that no one should have joy or abundance until everyone does, a belief that’s austere at one end, in the deprivation it endorses, and fantastical in the other, since it awaits a universal utopia. joy sneaks in anyway, abundance cascades forth uninvited.this collection seemed, to me, to meander at times. but i greatly appreciated the fact that solnit went into some detail about historical moments like occupy wall street, which i was too young at the time to understand or evaluate for myself.
cweiland's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
5.0
heidihaverkamp's review against another edition
4.0
It's easy these days to despair. Solnit warns against this - reminding us that the world is always changing, that we should not expect unencumbered progressive progress, that societal change is more often gradual than overarching or monocultural. She says insightful things like: "Hopes locates itself in the premises that we don't know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act." (xiv) Uncertainty is hopeful? Wow. But it's true, isn't it? The first few chapters of this book were most moving to me; the rest are essays about very particular places and issues, like magazine articles. This is probably a book to check out of the library rather than purchase. But those first chapters - I am still thinking about them, weeks later, and they are helping me keep on keeping on.
antonio_buehler's review against another edition
5.0
I wanted to find reasons to dismiss the book as pollyannaish, and although I don't agree with all of the wins as stated, I think this is a book I should have read years ago to combat the frustration and exhaustion that comes from trying to take on oppressive institutions and the drama that comes with activist organizing. After finishing it, I think it is a much needed read for anyone who dares to try to imagine and work toward creating a better world.
travisclau's review against another edition
5.0
Mandatory reading in these difficult times. Change is about microtransformations -- not always the ones that are marked by events or by coverage.
alyshadeshae's review against another edition
5.0
While the essays were interesting, I think the biggest takeaway is summed up by "celebrate the good and the victories."
Maybe an underlying problem is that despair isn’t even an ideological position but a habit and a reflex. I have found, during my adventures in squandering time on social media, that a lot of people respond to almost any achievement, positive development, or outright victory with “yes but.” Naysaying becomes a habit. Yes, this completely glorious thing had just happened, but the entity that achieved it had done something bad at another point in history. Yes, the anguish of this group was ended, but somewhere some other perhaps unrelated group was suffering hideously. It boiled down to: we can’t talk about good things until there are no more bad things. Which, given that the supply of bad things is inexhaustible, and more bad things are always arising, means that we can’t talk about good things at all. Ever.
zoereads88's review against another edition
4.0
Without fail, when I do presentations about the environmental crisis, I am asked the question, "Where do I find hope?" As a Christian, I naturally go to the bible, and theological works to answer this question. But recently I've become more curious about hope as a philosophical/political concept. I turned to Solnit's book to see what she might have to say, and I was not disappointed. While it was originally written in 2004, and focuses mainly on the US context, Solnit's main ideas about hope, despair, and movement building remain relevant. (My only complaint is that the book is a bit repetitive. You could probably pick out a couple main chapters and get her main concepts.)
Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the book:
"Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”
“Hope is the embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting.”
“I have noticed: wars will break out, the planet will heat up, species will die out, but how many, how hot, and what survives depends on whether we act. The future is dark, with a darkness as much of the womb as the grave.”
“An extraordinary imaginative power to reinvent ourselves is at large in the world, though it is hard to say how it will counteract the dead weight of neoliberalism, fundamentalisms, environmental destructions, and well-marketed mindlessness. But hope is not about what we expect. It is an embrace of the essential unknowability of the world, of the breaks with the present, the surprises. Or perhaps studying the record more carefully leads us to expect miracles–not when and where we expect them, but to expect to be astonished, to expect that we don’t know. And this is grounds to act. I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle, in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”
Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the book:
"Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”
“Hope is the embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting.”
“I have noticed: wars will break out, the planet will heat up, species will die out, but how many, how hot, and what survives depends on whether we act. The future is dark, with a darkness as much of the womb as the grave.”
“An extraordinary imaginative power to reinvent ourselves is at large in the world, though it is hard to say how it will counteract the dead weight of neoliberalism, fundamentalisms, environmental destructions, and well-marketed mindlessness. But hope is not about what we expect. It is an embrace of the essential unknowability of the world, of the breaks with the present, the surprises. Or perhaps studying the record more carefully leads us to expect miracles–not when and where we expect them, but to expect to be astonished, to expect that we don’t know. And this is grounds to act. I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle, in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”
therealkathryn's review against another edition
4.0
A good reminder that small changes can be catalysts, real change takes time, falling into despair because it's hard to hold on to hope is an ugly trap. Much thought provoking writing, as Solnit's books always are.