Overview

""A remarkable new history"" (David Wallace-Wells, New York Times Magazine) of a decade aflame--and what we can learn from its embers From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. Acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins carried out hundreds of interviews around the world, guided by a single, puzzling question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for? The result is a stirring work of history that connects events in a dozen countries and reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine's Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.

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9781541788978

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Reviews

"""A must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the profound global transformations since 2008. If We Burn brilliantly interweaves lived experiences and historical context to explain the confusing and effervescent years that changed not only Brazil, but the world as we know it. And the prose is delightful. I started reading and could not stop.""--Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, author of Amanhã Vai Ser Maior and The Rise of the Radical Right in the Global South ""Bevins's colorful reportage captures the élan of militants...and he's also incisive in his critique....The result is an illuminating postmortem on a decade of false dawns.""--Publishers Weekly ""In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Vincent introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future--one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution.""--Merve Emre, critic, New Yorker ""Ambitious, diligently researched, and provocative, If We Burn will transform the way you think. Vincent Bevins' detailed, comparative reporting offers a riveting look at the contradictions, unexpected consequences, and lessons of mass protests.""--Alexa Hagerty, author of Still Life with Bones ""I was not expecting this, but I think If We Burn is even better than The Jakarta Method.""--Benjamin Fogel, editor, Jacobin ""This is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now. Have we planted seeds for a better future, or have the gears of change frozen for good? Bevins lets the people he talked to, those on the street, answer.""--Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth ""This insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe."" --Kirkus"

"""Once you have read this incredible new book, you will start seeing its lessons absolutely everywhere, all around you.""--Dharna Noor, climate reporter at The Guardian ""Bevins has spent the last 10 years or so following and interviewing in search of answers. 'The point was not just to notice that the mass protest decade hasn't really worked out, ' he muses toward the end of the book. 'The idea was to understand why.' Fortunately, he comes away from his globe-trotting search with critical lessons for activists both here and abroad.""--The New Republic ""The best book I read this year....If We Burn is a globetrotting journey of historical reportage. Bevins conducted more than 200 interviews in 10 countries. Attentive to local particularities, he diligently retells how each protest developed before zooming out to ponder the implications for the 'mass protest decade' and consider what would be required for such movements to succeed in the future""--Eamon Whalen, Mother Jones ""A must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the profound global transformations since 2008. If We Burn brilliantly interweaves lived experiences and historical context to explain the confusing and effervescent years that changed not only Brazil, but the world as we know it. And the prose is delightful. I started reading and could not stop.""--Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, author of Amanhã Vai Ser Maior and The Rise of the Radical Right in the Global South ""Bevins's colorful reportage captures the élan of militants...and he's also incisive in his critique....The result is an illuminating postmortem on a decade of false dawns.""--Publishers Weekly ""In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Vincent introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future--one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution.""--Merve Emre, critic, New Yorker ""Ambitious, diligently researched, and provocative, If We Burn will transform the way you think. Vincent Bevins' detailed, comparative reporting offers a riveting look at the contradictions, unexpected consequences, and lessons of mass protests.""--Alexa Hagerty, author of Still Life with Bones ""I was not expecting this, but I think If We Burn is even better than The Jakarta Method.""--Benjamin Fogel, editor, Jacobin ""This is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now. Have we planted seeds for a better future, or have the gears of change frozen for good? Bevins lets the people he talked to, those on the street, answer.""--Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth ""This insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe."" --Kirkus"

"""In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Vincent introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future--one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution.""--Merve Emre, critic, New Yorker ""Ambitious, diligently researched, and provocative, If We Burn will transform the way you think. Vincent Bevins' detailed, comparative reporting offers a riveting look at the contradictions, unexpected consequences, and lessons of mass protests.""--Alexa Hagerty, author of Still Life with Bones ""I was not expecting this, but I think If We Burn is even better than The Jakarta Method.""--Benjamin Fogel, editor, Jacobin ""This is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now. Have we planted seeds for a better future, or have the gears of change frozen for good? Bevins lets the people he talked to, those on the street, answer.""--Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth ""This insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe."" --Kirkus"

"""This insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe."" --Kirkus ""Bevins's compelling new book, If We Burn, is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now. Have we planted seeds for a better future, or have the gears of change frozen for good? Bevins lets the people he talked to, those on the street, answer.""--Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth ""In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Vincent Bevins asks some of the most urgent questions for contemporary life: How can a multitude of ardent, angry, and hopeful people harness their energies for profound political change? And what happens if they fail? If We Burn travels the world in search of an answer and, along the way, introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose spontaneous acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future--one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution.""--Merve Emre, contributing writer, New Yorker"

Author Information

Vincent Bevins is an award-winning journalist. He covered Southeast Asia for the Washington Post after serving as the Brazil correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Bevins previously worked for the Financial Times and now contributes to outlets like the New York Times Magazine and the London Review of Books. His first book, The Jakarta Method, came out in 2020.

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