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arielamandah's review against another edition
4.0
I like what Solnit has to say. Keeping the long view in mind is critical for any movement. It's hard to remember that our lives are short in the grand scheme of things, and to expect wholesale change over the course of one lifespan is extremely ambitious. I have to say, I started reading this once in 2016, put it down, and picked it up again. It's feeling a little dated in her examples, but perhaps I'm just feeling heavy with the weight of the world right now. I think the message is still good.
susanbrooks's review against another edition
5.0
Profound, perspective changing essays that do what the title says. Give you hope that you can make change, even if you cannot predict outcomes of the daily news, or the actions of yourself or others. Did not find it at all dated, though she refers to events from 20 years ago.
mergito's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to love this, but sadly it feels very dated (not the authors fault)! My biggest problem was with a lot of assertion and not enough citation or evidence. Some of the claims are very contested, so it needed more back up to the argument.
balletbookworm's review against another edition
5.0
Thanks so much to Haymarket Books for making this available for free a few weeks ago. It was what I needed in the aftermath of the election, to get both riled up and stay hopeful. (Also has one of the best definitions of NAFTA I've run across.)
And to quote Dumbledore, who doesn't figure here but has the line that resonates the most: hope can be found in the darkest of places, if one only turns on the light.
And to quote Dumbledore, who doesn't figure here but has the line that resonates the most: hope can be found in the darkest of places, if one only turns on the light.
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.