Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

Rebecca Solnit, famous for her 2008 book Men Explain Things to Me, is back with this eloquent accounting of radical thinking, written at a time when radicals everywhere are losing hope. Solnit traverses whole worlds of radical thought, moving back through environmental, cultural, and political history to identify thinkers and movements that had their finger on the pulse and that were on the precipice of producing major changes in Western society. Some of these movements succeeded, and though we may not think about these activists and radicals of yesteryear much today, Solnit argues that the world would not be the same had they failed. Some of these movements have not yet seen their goals come to fruition, and Solnit works to unpack the reasons why that may be the case. Finally, Solnit offers radicals hope by reminding them that their cynicism and despair derive from an overconfidence about what the future holds. Instead, they should retain their commitment to action in the face of a world whose future is unknowable and not yet written in stone. A powerful book to restore faith in a better future.