--- product_id: 24649883 title: "Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities" price: "KD 5.10" currency: KWD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/24649883-hope-in-the-dark-untold-histories-wild-possibilities store_origin: KW region: Kuwait --- # Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities **Price:** KD 5.10 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities - **How much does it cost?** KD 5.10 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.kw](https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/24649883-hope-in-the-dark-untold-histories-wild-possibilities) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that's marked this new millennium.” ―Bill McKibben “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” ―The New Yorker 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 radicals 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 argued 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 2016 in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of eighteen or so books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including the books Men Explain Things to Me and Hope in the Dark , both also with Haymarket; a trilogy of atlases of American cities; The Faraway Nearby ; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster ; A Field Guide to Getting Lost ; Wanderlust: A History of Walking ; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at Harper's and a regular contributor to the Guardian. Review: A necessary, healing interjection. Should be read by all political organizers - It's easy for political activists to overlook their own victories. Activists are driven by a bold, transformative vision of change. That vision is indispensable and is the fuel of progress, but it can also encourage activists to adopt a narrative whereby organizers defeat evil and their positive vision of the future comes into existence. But the world is far too ambiguous and chaotic for that narrative; viewing change in those terms leads activists to see their work as resulting only in defeat, which causes burnout and cynicism while discouraging new people from joining a movement. Change is never easy to see and progress never moves on a clear linear path. Solnit outlines a different vision of change, one which is unpredictable, chaotic, improvisational. Total defeats lead to revolutions generations later; technologies produced by militaries become the engine of peace; supposedly lost causes are resumed; a speech to a nearly empty audience sparks a movement. These aren't just idle theories, Solnit provides real-world examples. Solnit interrogates the ambiguities and forgotten histories of movements and finds thousands of victories; some that only changed one person's life, some that overthrew dictators -- but all victories. It's our obligation to find and celebrate these forgotten victories in order to remind ourselves of our collective power to change the world and inoculate ourselves against the despair and cynicism that would lead us to willingly forfeit the collective power that all of human history clearly shows we possess. Solnit's history of activist victories is driven by a theory of hope as a discipline, not a foreign object one does or does not possess. Hope requires action and practice; action requires a belief that the world can be changed; believing that the world can be changed requires a knowledge and respect of history. The chaotic (ridiculous?) nature of the world makes it impossible to ever know the full impact of our actions; believing that actions driven by love can improve the world requires a leap of faith; all of human history indicates that that faith is the only engine of change and that it actively imposes new realities on the world, even if we can't fully predict or understand what those realities will be. That gaping unknown between action and impact is the 'dark' Solnit refers to; darkness like a womb, not depression. Changing the world requires giving up the idea that we'll understand what that change looks like. Absurd? Well... What did the dark look like to an abolitionist resisting slavery in 1814; a woman demanding equal political rights in 1790; an environmentalist opposing new pipelines in 2017? In these catastrophic times with the rise of the far-right, the corporate takeover of our government and media, the existential threat of climate change, and growing wealth inequality, despair and cynicism are easy. Every day corporate power aims to demobilize and alienate us further. Hope has never been a more vital and powerful discipline. Hope is a radical choice; a choice necessary to overcome the crises facing our planet. Solnit reminds us that choosing to practice hope isn't delusional or naive, it's a rational (though difficult) choice that has always been integral to progress. Hope is a choice that burdens us with responsibilities, responsibilities that enrich our lives. Hope requires action. Let's act. Review: A reminder to keep on truckin' - This book is a little dated; originally written in the early 2000s, even the 3d edition (which I read) was written before Donald Trump, which degraded so many political norms and expectations. HOWEVER: the central message remains clear, and that is that history is like an iceberg: what we see is not even half of what's there. It's a reminder to the average citizen like me that really boring things like tracking neighborhood zoning decisions or writing letters to the editor or picking up the trash--every little thing counts. When I feel discouraged, I remind myself of the first sentence: "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." Highly recommended. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #20,484 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #39 in Feminist Theory (Books) #47 in History & Theory of Politics #128 in Sociology Reference | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,055 Reviews | ## Images ![Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Efcamc9vL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A necessary, healing interjection. Should be read by all political organizers *by G***E on October 10, 2017* It's easy for political activists to overlook their own victories. Activists are driven by a bold, transformative vision of change. That vision is indispensable and is the fuel of progress, but it can also encourage activists to adopt a narrative whereby organizers defeat evil and their positive vision of the future comes into existence. But the world is far too ambiguous and chaotic for that narrative; viewing change in those terms leads activists to see their work as resulting only in defeat, which causes burnout and cynicism while discouraging new people from joining a movement. Change is never easy to see and progress never moves on a clear linear path. Solnit outlines a different vision of change, one which is unpredictable, chaotic, improvisational. Total defeats lead to revolutions generations later; technologies produced by militaries become the engine of peace; supposedly lost causes are resumed; a speech to a nearly empty audience sparks a movement. These aren't just idle theories, Solnit provides real-world examples. Solnit interrogates the ambiguities and forgotten histories of movements and finds thousands of victories; some that only changed one person's life, some that overthrew dictators -- but all victories. It's our obligation to find and celebrate these forgotten victories in order to remind ourselves of our collective power to change the world and inoculate ourselves against the despair and cynicism that would lead us to willingly forfeit the collective power that all of human history clearly shows we possess. Solnit's history of activist victories is driven by a theory of hope as a discipline, not a foreign object one does or does not possess. Hope requires action and practice; action requires a belief that the world can be changed; believing that the world can be changed requires a knowledge and respect of history. The chaotic (ridiculous?) nature of the world makes it impossible to ever know the full impact of our actions; believing that actions driven by love can improve the world requires a leap of faith; all of human history indicates that that faith is the only engine of change and that it actively imposes new realities on the world, even if we can't fully predict or understand what those realities will be. That gaping unknown between action and impact is the 'dark' Solnit refers to; darkness like a womb, not depression. Changing the world requires giving up the idea that we'll understand what that change looks like. Absurd? Well... What did the dark look like to an abolitionist resisting slavery in 1814; a woman demanding equal political rights in 1790; an environmentalist opposing new pipelines in 2017? In these catastrophic times with the rise of the far-right, the corporate takeover of our government and media, the existential threat of climate change, and growing wealth inequality, despair and cynicism are easy. Every day corporate power aims to demobilize and alienate us further. Hope has never been a more vital and powerful discipline. Hope is a radical choice; a choice necessary to overcome the crises facing our planet. Solnit reminds us that choosing to practice hope isn't delusional or naive, it's a rational (though difficult) choice that has always been integral to progress. Hope is a choice that burdens us with responsibilities, responsibilities that enrich our lives. Hope requires action. Let's act. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A reminder to keep on truckin' *by T***T on June 23, 2023* This book is a little dated; originally written in the early 2000s, even the 3d edition (which I read) was written before Donald Trump, which degraded so many political norms and expectations. HOWEVER: the central message remains clear, and that is that history is like an iceberg: what we see is not even half of what's there. It's a reminder to the average citizen like me that really boring things like tracking neighborhood zoning decisions or writing letters to the editor or picking up the trash--every little thing counts. When I feel discouraged, I remind myself of the first sentence: "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." Highly recommended. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great writer *by J***O on February 22, 2026* My girlfriend liked this book so much that she took it after she broke up with me. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/24649883-hope-in-the-dark-untold-histories-wild-possibilities](https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/24649883-hope-in-the-dark-untold-histories-wild-possibilities) --- *Product available on Desertcart Kuwait* *Store origin: KW* *Last updated: 2026-05-18*