A review by shad_reads
Pedagogía de la esperanza. Un reencuentro con la Pedagogía del oprimido by Paulo Freire

3.0

It reads like an old accomplished man looking back on his interesting life and recounting anecdote after anecdote. To be fair, most of the anecdotes are pretty interesting because Freire has led a pretty unique life - he corresponds with leftist activists who sometimes go on to be presidents etc. So definitely, I'd say the text is peppered with very historical conversations. Nevertheless, it's pretty disorganised, and a point can lead to a story, which leads to another story, and after a while the original point is forgotten. I did think that the conversational language was far more approachable than Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Also, a lot of the abstract ideas and concepts he introduces in Oppressed he has more examples for in Hope, mostly because people who read Oppressed were inspired to start projects and wrote to him with the outcomes. It's interesting to see him acknowledge his position change on some issues (feminism), but not others (I don't understand how he doesn't agree that racism can exist separate from a class-based analysis. He acknowledges that they are related, but cannot envision racism without a class element.)

All in all, I'm glad I read it, but can't imagine how I'd be referring to it anytime soon. If it does miraculously pop up in conversation, I will be sure to edit this after.