Hope In The Dark

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. At a time when political, environmental and social gloom can seem overpowering, this remarkable book offers a lucid, affirmative and well-argued case for hope. This exquisite work traces a history of activism and social change over the past five decades - from the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the worldwide marches against the war in Iraq. Hope in the Dark is a paean to optimism in the uncertainty of the twenty-first century. Tracing the footsteps of the last century's thinkers - including Woolf, Gandhi, Borges, Benjamin and Havel - Solnit conjures a timeless vision of cause and effect that will light our way through the dark, and lead us to profound and effective political engagement. ‘Her Hope is a sound and light show, a call to arms, but also a charmingly disarming conversation piece. If you're interested in where democracy - and thus the democratic world - goes next, she's an essential time-travelling companion.’ – The Observer With a bibliography including writing on ‘feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster', Rebecca Solnit is a significant and increasingly influential contemporary voice. A writer and historian, her books include: Hope in the Dark, Men Explain Things to Me, The Faraway Nearby, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust: A History of Walking and The Mother of All Questions.