New Releases by Rebecca Solnit

In Mannen leggen me altijd alles uit maakt Rebecca Solnit duidelijk hoe onze samenleving nog altijd is doortrokken van ongelijkheid tussen de seksen. In het titelessay introduceert ze het verschijnsel dat inmiddels bekendstaat als ‘mansplaining’. Waarom gaan mannen ervan uit dat ze alles weten? En, minstens zo erg, waarom laten vrouwen zich gewillig de mond snoeren? Marja Pruis laat in het voorwoord haar licht schijnen op het fenomeen Solnit. ‘Verhelderend, geruststellend en nog grappig ook. Mijn boek van het jaar.’ LENA DUNHAM ‘Solnit is idealistisch op de enige geloofwaardige manier: woedend op de werkelijkheid zonder blind te zijn voor de complexiteit.’ DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER ‘Scherpzinnige, eigentijdse reflecties over de ongelijkheid tussen mannen en vrouwen.’ THE NEW YORK TIMES

A collection of feminist essays steeped in "Solnit''s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity" ( The Los Angeles Review). In a timely and incisive follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers sharp commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, "Solnit draw[s] anecdotes of female indignity or male aggression from history, social media, literature, popular culture, and the news . . . The main essay in the book is about the various ways that women are silenced, and Solnit focuses upon the power of storytelling—the way that who gets to speak, and about what, shapes how a society understands itself and what it expects from its members. The Mother of All Questions poses the thesis that telling women''s stories to the world will change the way that the world treats women, and it sets out to tell as many of those stories as possible" ( The New Yorker). "There''s a new feminist revolution—open to people of all genders—brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices."—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times–bestselling author of Natural Causes "Short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch." — Publishers Weekly "A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit''s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive." — Booklist

Solnit reflexiona sobre los logros cruciales que han conseguido los activistas de base en multitud de protestas y revoluciones, desde las más conocidas y estudiadas como el movimiento de los derechos civiles estadounidenses o la caída del Muro de Berlín, a otras como las exitosas protestas contra las pruebas nucleares en Nevada o la restauración del río Los Ángeles.

"[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes" ( Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit''s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. "One of the best books of the 21st century." — The Guardian "No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that''s marked this new millennium." —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter "An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways." — The New Yorker

\"A stimulating compendium\" on topics from antibiotics to animals, featuring Rebecca Solnit, E.O. Wilson, Nicholas Carr, Elizabeth Kolbert, and many more ( Kirkus Reviews). \"A consistently strong series . . . Making connections between seemingly unrelated topics can help expand thinking, as seen in the effects of automated navigation on both airplane pilot error and Inuit hunting accidents that Nicholas Carr explores in ''The Great Forgetting.'' Sarah Stewart Johnson makes a similar connection between the loss of a 1912 Antarctic expedition and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in ''O-Rings.'' . . . Essays like Virginia Hughes''s ''23 and You'' investigates the effects of availability of individual genetic information on human interactions, while pieces like Maryn McKenna''s ''Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future'' and Kate Sheppard''s ''Under Water'' remind us of unpleasant futures which we have in large part created ourselves. But Barbara Kingsolver''s ''Where it Begins,'' a lyrical musing on connectedness, or Wilson''s optimistic, bug-loving ''The Rebirth of Gorongosa,'' reveal that among the strange, shocking, or depressing, there is still unadulterated joy to be found.\" — Publishers Weekly \"Undeniably exquisite . . . meditations that reveal not only how science actually happens but also who or what propels its immutable humanity.\" —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings Contributors include: Katherine Bagley • Nicholas Carr • David Dobbs • Pippa Goldschmidt • Amy Harmon • Robin Marantz Henig • Virginia Hughes • Ferris Jabr • Sarah Stewart Johnson • Barbara J. King • Barbara Kingsolver • Maggie Koerth-Baker • Elizabeth Kolbert • Joshua Lang • Maryn McKenna • Seth Mnookin • Justin Nobel • Fred Pearce • Corey S. Powell • Roy Scranton • Kate Sheppard • Bill Sherwonit • Rebecca Solnit • David Treuer • E.O. Wilson • Carl Zimmer

"A beautiful, absorbing, tragic book."—Larry McMurtry In 1851, a war began in what would become Yosemite National Park, a war against the indigenous inhabitants. A century later–in 1951–and a hundred and fifty miles away, another war began when the U.S. government started setting off nuclear bombs at the Nevada Test Site. It was called a nuclear testing program, but functioned as a war against the land and people of the Great Basin. In this foundational book of landscape theory and environmental thinking, Rebecca Solnit explores our national Eden and Armageddon and offers a pathbreaking history of the west, focusing on the relationship between culture and its implementation as politics. In a new preface, she considers the continuities and changes of these invisible wars in the context of our current climate change crisis, and reveals how the long arm of these histories continue to inspire her writing and hope.

A New York Times Notable Book Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy, from the author of Orwell''s Roses Apricots. Her mother''s disintegrating memory. An invitation to Iceland. Illness. These are Rebecca Solnit''s raw materials, but The Faraway Nearby goes beyond her own life, as she spirals out into the stories she heard and read—from fairy tales to Mary Shelley''s Frankenstein—that helped her navigate her difficult passge. Solnit takes us into the lives of others—an arctic cannibal, the young Che Guevara among the leprosy afflicted, a blues musician, an Icelandic artist and her labyrinth—to understand warmth and coldness, kindness and imagination, decay and transformation, making art and making self. This captivating, exquisitely written exploration of the forces that connect us and the way we tell our stories is a tour de force of association, a marvelous Russian doll of a book that is a fitting companion to Solnit''s much-loved A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect "antidote to mansplaining" ( The Stranger). In her comic, scathing essay "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don''t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, "He''s trying to kill me!" This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf''s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women. "In this series of personal but unsentimental essays, Solnit gives succinct shorthand to a familiar female experience that before had gone unarticulated, perhaps even unrecognized." — The New York Times "Essential feminist reading." — The New Republic "This slim book hums with power and wit." — Boston Globe "Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society." — San Francisco Chronicle "Essential." — Marketplace "Feminist, frequently funny, unflinchingly honest and often scathing in its conclusions." — Salon

A New York Times Notable Book Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune “A landmark book that gives impassioned challenge to the social meaning of disasters” —The New York Times Book Review “Solnit argues that disasters are opportunities as well as oppressions, each one a summons to rediscover the powerful engagement and joy of genuine altruism, civic life, grassroots community, and meaningful work.” —San Francisco Chronicle A stirring investigation into what happens in the aftermath of disaster, from the author of Orwell''s Roses The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides. A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster''s grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become-one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local.

“An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” —Los Angeles Times From the award-winning author of Orwell''s Roses, a stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnit''s life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place. Solnit is interested in the stories we use to navigate our way through the world, and the places we traverse, from wilderness to cities, in finding ourselves, or losing ourselves. While deeply personal, her own stories link up to larger stories, from captivity narratives of early Americans to the use of the color blue in Renaissance painting, not to mention encounters with tortoises, monks, punk rockers, mountains, deserts, and the movie Vertigo. The result is a distinctive, stimulating voyage of discovery.

Yosemite is a world-famous location that has attracted famous photographers such as Eadward Muybridge, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams, environmental organizations, rock climbers, and tourists. This book puts the park in a new light, with rephotography of some of the most enduring photos taken at Yosemite and three essays by noted critic Rebecca Solnit. The photographs and essays reconsider the iconic status of Yosemite in America''s conception of wilderness, questioning how the park was defined by its first visitors and offering new ideas for an America--and a park--that has changed dramatically since tourists first set foot in Yosemite Valley. Jarring and insightful, this is an intimate reconsideration of a park that millions of people hold dear.--From publisher description.

A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, The Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Sally Hacker Prize for the History of Technology “A panoramic vision of cultural change” —The New York Times Through the story of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge, the author of Orwell''s Roses explores what it was about California in the late 19th-century that enabled it to become such a center of technological and cultural innovation The world as we know it today began in California in the late 1800s, and Eadweard Muybridge had a lot to do with it. This striking assertion is at the heart of Rebecca Solnit’s new book, which weaves together biography, history, and fascinating insights into art and technology to create a boldly original portrait of America on the threshold of modernity. The story of Muybridge—who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically—becomes a lens for a larger story about the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. Solnit shows how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post–Civil War California led directly to the two industries—Hollywood and Silicon Valley—that have most powerfully defined contemporary society.

Cette étude divertissante considère la marche comme un art, avec ses maîtres, ses lieux de culte et son histoire. Rebecca Solnit évoque les différentes écoles de cet art qui célèbrent la beauté des paysages et du grand air. Par ailleurs, elle étudie les pèlerinages, les marches de protestation, les flâneries urbaines, le nomadisme des comédiens et des musiciens, les voyages à pied des compagnons du devoir et différentes pérégrinations qui, parfois, constituent de véritables rites de passage pour les jeunes. Le rythme de la marche a été ressenti par des philosophes et des écrivains comme propice à la réflexion, voire à la création. S''appuyant sur des citations et des anecdotes, Rebecca Solnit montre à quel point on saisit le monde à travers le corps et le corps à travers le monde. Mais ce " livre parcours " comprend aussi un véritable réquisitoire contre tout ce qui, aujourd''hui, empêche l''exercice de la marche. La rue est un espace démocratique par excellence, et la libre circulation du promeneur en ville et à la campagne une revendication plus nécessaire que jamais... A notre époque, l''art de la marche devient une pratique fondamentale et subversive dans les pays occidentaux.

A multidisciplinary compilation of nineteen incisive essays ranges from the formality of traditional art criticism to intimate, lyrical meditations as they explore nuclear test sites, the meaning of national borders and geographical features, and the idea of the feminine and the sublime.

The beauty, mystery, and abuse of the American desert are topics explored by Richard Misrach in his breathtaking Desert Cantos series, one of the most ambitious and innovative photographic projects of our time. Evolving over the course of two decades, the series now comprises eighteen numbered and named subseries, or cantos, and a prologue. With subjects as diverse as a military base in Utah, a man-made flood in California, sublime skies in Arizona, and arts happenings in Nevada, Richard Misrach''s images raise probing and compelling questions about contemporary society''s relationship to the desert. Included in this beautifully illustrated book are more than sixty Desert Cantos photographs that have never before been published, as well as some of the artist''s best-known and most-admired images. This monumental publication, the first comprehensive survey of Richard Misrach''s epic work-in-progress, serves as an exhibition catalogue for a major midcareer retrospective organized by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The show will tour in the United States (venues include Tucson, Tacoma, and Chicago).