Join internationally acclaimed writer, historian and activist Rebecca Solnit for a special online event exploring her powerful new book- The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change.
In this urgent and illuminating work, Solnit argues that while climate breakdown, democratic erosion and the rise of authoritarian politics dominate the headlines, they do not tell the whole story. Beneath the turbulence, she traces what she calls a “slow revolution”: the patient, persistent work of movements and communities reshaping the world in ways reactionary forces cannot tolerate.
With clarity and moral force, Solnit explores how change often begins quietly before it becomes visible; how despair narrows our political imagination; and how the myth of inevitability serves those invested in the status quo. Drawing on decades of activism and feminist and climate justice thought, she reframes hope not as naïve optimism, but as a disciplined commitment to possibility.
In this online conversation, Solnit will reflect on contested futures, collective action and why new worlds are already emerging – even in moments of backlash.
A timely and galvanising event with one of the most influential public thinkers of our time.
Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty-five books, including Orwell’s Roses, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Orwell Prize for political writing, Recollections of My Non-Existence, which was longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and shortlisted for the 2021 James Tait Black Award, The Faraway Nearby, Wanderlust, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, A Paradise Built in Hell and Hope in the Dark. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and many essays on feminism, activism, social change, hope, and the climate crisis, and writes regularly for the Guardian.
A longtime climate and human rights activist, she serves on the boards of Oil Change International and Third Act. Her newsletter of essays and analyses can be found at meditationsinanemergency.com