Storming the Gates of Paradise

Landscapes for Politics

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science
Cover of the book Storming the Gates of Paradise by Rebecca Solnit, University of California Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Rebecca Solnit ISBN: 9780520941786
Publisher: University of California Press Publication: June 18, 2007
Imprint: University of California Press Language: English
Author: Rebecca Solnit
ISBN: 9780520941786
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication: June 18, 2007
Imprint: University of California Press
Language: English

Rebecca Solnit has made a vocation of journeying into difficult territory and reporting back, as an environmentalist, antiglobalization activist, and public intellectual. Storming the Gates of Paradise, an anthology of her essential essays from the past ten years, takes the reader from the Pyrenees to the U.S.--Mexican border, from San Francisco to London, from open sky to the deepest mines, and from the antislavery struggles of two hundred years ago to today’s street protests. The nearly forty essays collected here comprise a unique guidebook to the American landscape after the millennium—not just the deserts, skies, gardens, and wilderness areas that have long made up Solnit’s subject matter, but the social landscape of democracy and repression, of borders, ruins, and protests. She ventures into territories as dark as prison and as sublime as a broad vista, revealing beauty in the harshest landscape and political struggle in the most apparently serene view. Her introduction sets the tone and the book’s overarching themes as she describes Thoreau, leaving the jail cell where he had been confined for refusing to pay war taxes and proceeding directly to his favorite huckleberry patch. In this way she links pleasure to politics, brilliantly demonstrating that the path to paradise has often run through prison.

These startling insights on current affairs, politics, culture, and history, always expressed in Solnit’s pellucid and graceful prose, constantly revise our views of the otherwise ordinary and familiar. Illustrated throughout, Storming the Gates of Paradise represents recent developments in Solnit’s thinking and offers the reader a panoramic world view enriched by her characteristically provocative, inspiring, and hopeful observations.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Rebecca Solnit has made a vocation of journeying into difficult territory and reporting back, as an environmentalist, antiglobalization activist, and public intellectual. Storming the Gates of Paradise, an anthology of her essential essays from the past ten years, takes the reader from the Pyrenees to the U.S.--Mexican border, from San Francisco to London, from open sky to the deepest mines, and from the antislavery struggles of two hundred years ago to today’s street protests. The nearly forty essays collected here comprise a unique guidebook to the American landscape after the millennium—not just the deserts, skies, gardens, and wilderness areas that have long made up Solnit’s subject matter, but the social landscape of democracy and repression, of borders, ruins, and protests. She ventures into territories as dark as prison and as sublime as a broad vista, revealing beauty in the harshest landscape and political struggle in the most apparently serene view. Her introduction sets the tone and the book’s overarching themes as she describes Thoreau, leaving the jail cell where he had been confined for refusing to pay war taxes and proceeding directly to his favorite huckleberry patch. In this way she links pleasure to politics, brilliantly demonstrating that the path to paradise has often run through prison.

These startling insights on current affairs, politics, culture, and history, always expressed in Solnit’s pellucid and graceful prose, constantly revise our views of the otherwise ordinary and familiar. Illustrated throughout, Storming the Gates of Paradise represents recent developments in Solnit’s thinking and offers the reader a panoramic world view enriched by her characteristically provocative, inspiring, and hopeful observations.

More books from University of California Press

Cover of the book Hard Work by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Changing Energy by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book On Russian Music by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Music Makes Me by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Music, Authorship, and the Book in the First Century of Print by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Berlin Psychoanalytic by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book The Biography of Ancient Israel by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book The Intimate Economies of Bangkok by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book California by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Birthing a Mother by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book The Poems of Exile by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Who Will Lead Us? by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Experiencing Latin American Music by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Race and the Brazilian Body by Rebecca Solnit
Cover of the book Roots of Ecology by Rebecca Solnit
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy