What do you think?
Rate this book
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
A startling investigation of what people do in disasters and why it matters
Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster--whether manmade or natural--people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities?
In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.
Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster--whether manmade or natural--people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities?
In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.
353 pages, Hardcover
First published August 20, 2009
1,130 people are currently reading
23.5k people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Solnit
119 books7,574 followersWriter, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including Call Them By Their True Names (Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction), Cinderella Liberator, Men Explain Things to Me, The Mother of All Questions, and Hope in the Dark, and co-creator of the City of Women map, all published by Haymarket Books; 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). Her forthcoming memoir, Recollections of My Nonexistence, is scheduled to release in March, 2020. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at the Guardian and a regular contributor to Literary Hub.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 643 reviews
March 20, 2014
What is the moral equivalent of war?
Solnit’s book is in many ways an extended argument (with examples) on William James’ essay on his famous question: “What is the moral equivalent of war?” - Based on the premise that war is an ennobling bringing-together of humans and that the experience is uplifting and necessary and an equivalent would be a wonderful thing to find.
Everyone from Hobbes to Hollywood filmmakers has assumed and showcased that when disaster strikes, society crumbles. They show this “Law of the Jungle” as pure and dangerous chaos. Solnit wants to show that what in fact takes place is another kind of anarchy, where the citizenry by and large organize and care for themselves and rises above the disaster.
News Media (to most the only media that exists) loves spectacle and spectacle is gore - they highlight the worst stories and that is what you remember. That is why this book is important. Because Beliefs matter.
Especially when we move into an age where disasters are going to be more and more a part of our lives, it is important to learn to maintain continuity and a sense of societal organization through such periods.
Solnit tells numerous stories to illustrate that in the wake of an earthquake, a bombing, or a major storm, most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves and those around them, strangers and neighbors as well as friends and loved ones. The image of the selfish, panicky, or regressively savage human being in times of disaster has little truth to it Solnit asserts.
But belief lags behind, and often the worst behavior in the wake of a calamity is on the part of those who believe that others will behave savagely and that they themselves are taking defensive measures against barbarism.
This is the power of self-fulfilling prophesies - any belief that is acted on makes the world in its image. Beliefs matter. And so do the facts behind them. The astonishing gap between common beliefs and actualities about disaster behavior limits the possibilities, and changing beliefs could fundamentally change much more.
Of course it is dangerous to subscribe fully to this optimism and the case can easily be made that Solnit got carried away in this book. Her descriptions of disasters are so ennobling it begins to test the limits of belief.
Then Solnit starts talking of how disaster is almost nostalgic to its survivors:
...It reminded me of how many of us in the San Francisco Bay Area had loved the Loma Prieta earthquake that took place three weeks before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Or loved not the earthquake but the way communities had responded to it.
Especially when you hear phrases like “enjoying immensely the disaster...”, it is natural to feel skeptical but we also have to keep in mind that this might only be a limitation of language:
...if enjoyment is the right word for that sense of immersion in the moment and solidarity with others caused by the rupture in everyday life, an emotion graver than happiness but deeply positive. We don’t even have a language for this emotion, in which the wonderful comes wrapped in the terrible, joy in sorrow, courage in fear. We cannot welcome disaster, but we can value the responses, both practical and psychological.
In addition, a few major drawbacks too have to be pointed out:
1. By and large Solnit avoids turning her gaze to the disasters in the developing world where chances of solidarity might (or might not be) be less. I am not implying that the people would be less noble, but with less infrastructure and with total anarchy, it might disappear. The study is not complete without exploring that aspect.
2. Solnit paints a particularly dangerous picture of the administration and the authorities in this book. This is dangerous since if the purpose of the book is to influence beliefs, painting such a caricatured version would make it harder for order to be established post-disaster - trust in the authorities would surely be necessary at some point.
This near-parody portrayal of the ‘authorities’ is extreme and should probably be ignored. That is the problem with anecdotal books - a book could easily be written too about how the supposed monsters of bureaucracy becomes angels of deliverance in a disaster. This is not to use that as a hammer against this book, but only to suggest that such a book too should probably be written.
3. Another parody-portrayal is that of the ‘elites’ - painting them as the defenders of some ‘order’ who completely lose it when utopian anarchy descends in the wake of a disaster. Being blind to goodness, they then embark on a path of distraction that brings a bad name to all disaster victims. ‘Elite Panic’ she calls this phenomena. This section of the book is written with some heavily shaded blinkers and deserves at best a derisive laugh from the unbiased reader.
4. In addition to these wild approximations, Solnit in her quest for legitimacy for the ideas presented opts for wildly reaching speculations into various fields - for example, comparing disaster to carnivals and thus as a necessary celebration of life. Or comparing to revolutions, or to freedom struggles to show that disasters are a break with the past, ‘mini utopias’ of a sort. That is surely more than just ‘stretching an argument’. In these aspects the book is an overkill. Even lunacy, at times.
Indeed, as Richard says in his review, this is the Oprah version. But, in spite of all the criticisms above, it is still an important book. Sometimes the best way to convey to people that the horrid hell of a disaster aftermath is still a path to possible escape is to draw upon real stories, and present them in as empathetic a manner as possible. Disaster is never terribly far away. Knowing how people behave in disasters is fundamental to knowing how to prepare for them. And what can be learned about resilience, social and psychological response, and possibility from sudden disasters is relevant as well for the slower disasters of poverty, economic upheaval, and incremental environmental degradation as well as the abiding questions about social possibilities.
The purpose of the book is not to inform, it is to affect in a visceral fashion - you might not remember facts when the next super-cyclone hits, but you might remember a story and if that stops you from going for an axe for a second longer - enough to see the pain in another eye - the book might have served its purpose. Beliefs matter.
P.S. Of course, this review is also the Oprah version, but I was moved and I will stand by the author on this one, at least in essence, if not in full.
December 2, 2010
Before reading this book I was not a fan of Rebecca Solnit. Upon the insistent recommendation of several friends who rarely steer me wrong, a few years ago I bought a copy of her earlier book about Eadweard Muybridge ("River of Shadows") and found it completely unreadable. I could sense that Solnit was smart, but it was as if she were speaking in tongues - wading through her prose was sheer torment. So I ditched it.
About a month ago I heard her speak about this latest book on a local radio program and she was so incredibly smart and passionate and articulate, and her thesis was so appealing, that I felt compelled to give her another chance. A Paradise Built in Hell was well worth it. It's an extraordinary book -- fascinating, thought-provoking, and ultimately persuasive in supporting Solnit's thesis. And although her style is still somewhat undisciplined, and the material could have been more tightly organized, I found these aspects less annoying than in the previous book, probably because they seemed to be primarily a manifestation of her infectious enthusiasm for the material.
Viewers of "The History Channel" will be familiar with its habit of broadcasting a regularly scheduled "Apocalypse Week", during which they attempt to goose the ratings by scaring the bejasus out of their viewing audience. A typical day's programming during Apocalypse Week takes one possible way in which the world might end (megavolcano explosion, meteor impact, nuclear holocaust, deadly plague, climatic catastrophe, the Rapture, Armageddon as prophesied in the Book of Revelations, insert your own favorite apocalyptic nightmare here ...) and develops it in depth. The cynicism and idiocy with which these scenarios are fleshed out cannot be overstated (e.g. alleged "experts" pontificate on whether emergency services are likely to be overextended, or whether planes will fall out of the skies, in the immediate aftermath of the Rapture; or the apocalypse is linked to the prophecies of Nostradamus, or the Mayan calendar; boundless idiocy runs rampant). Certain themes are common to all apocalyptic scenarios, however- in particular, a complete breakdown of the social order, with people reverting overnight to atavistic stereotypes, resorting to looting and hoarding as they fight tooth and claw for limited resources. This projected behavioral model is also popular with government and law enforcement agencies, e.g. to justify the aggressive intervention by armed law enforcement personnel with broad powers and orders to shoot to kill (think of the official response to Hurricane Katrina). It's based on a depressing and frightening view of human nature.
In A Paradise Built in Hell Solnit mounts a spirited argument that this pessimistic view of how people respond to catastrophe is fundamentally wrong. Instead, she argues, disasters are far more likely to bring out the best in people -- there is a natural desire to help one another, which is actually easier to put into action, given the relaxation of social barriers that often prevails in the
wake of a disaster. You might go for years just nodding at that neighbor across the street, but after the earthquake/fire/blackout the two of you may just end up having a real conversation.
Solnit grounds her argument in five specific case studies:
* the San Francisco earthquake of 1906
* the 1917 explosion of the munitions ship Mont Blanc in Halifax, Nova Scotia
* Mexico City's 1985 earthquake
* the World Trade Center attacks of 2001
* Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
There were instances where a bad situation was made worse when those in power, through fear or panic, resorted to extreme and unwarranted measures (General Funston's imposition of de facto martial law following the SF quake, where soldiers were given license to shoot to kill anyone who did not cooperate satisfactorily; FEMA's and law enforcement's response after Katrina, where citizens were treated as likely criminals rather than people who needed to be helped). The fear-mongering narrative of barely contained pandemonium often finds traction with the media, but is rarely accurate. By detailed examination of the five case studies, Solnit makes an extremely convincing argument that the "natural" response to disaster is increased cooperation, a sense of solidarity and future possibility, indeed a degree of exhilaration among most survivors.
All five examples are interesting, but her discussion of the WTC attacks and Hurricane Katrina stand out as exceptionally measured, thoughtful and thought-provoking.
This is an extraordinary, wonderful book, which I recommend to everyone.
About a month ago I heard her speak about this latest book on a local radio program and she was so incredibly smart and passionate and articulate, and her thesis was so appealing, that I felt compelled to give her another chance. A Paradise Built in Hell was well worth it. It's an extraordinary book -- fascinating, thought-provoking, and ultimately persuasive in supporting Solnit's thesis. And although her style is still somewhat undisciplined, and the material could have been more tightly organized, I found these aspects less annoying than in the previous book, probably because they seemed to be primarily a manifestation of her infectious enthusiasm for the material.
Viewers of "The History Channel" will be familiar with its habit of broadcasting a regularly scheduled "Apocalypse Week", during which they attempt to goose the ratings by scaring the bejasus out of their viewing audience. A typical day's programming during Apocalypse Week takes one possible way in which the world might end (megavolcano explosion, meteor impact, nuclear holocaust, deadly plague, climatic catastrophe, the Rapture, Armageddon as prophesied in the Book of Revelations, insert your own favorite apocalyptic nightmare here ...) and develops it in depth. The cynicism and idiocy with which these scenarios are fleshed out cannot be overstated (e.g. alleged "experts" pontificate on whether emergency services are likely to be overextended, or whether planes will fall out of the skies, in the immediate aftermath of the Rapture; or the apocalypse is linked to the prophecies of Nostradamus, or the Mayan calendar; boundless idiocy runs rampant). Certain themes are common to all apocalyptic scenarios, however- in particular, a complete breakdown of the social order, with people reverting overnight to atavistic stereotypes, resorting to looting and hoarding as they fight tooth and claw for limited resources. This projected behavioral model is also popular with government and law enforcement agencies, e.g. to justify the aggressive intervention by armed law enforcement personnel with broad powers and orders to shoot to kill (think of the official response to Hurricane Katrina). It's based on a depressing and frightening view of human nature.
In A Paradise Built in Hell Solnit mounts a spirited argument that this pessimistic view of how people respond to catastrophe is fundamentally wrong. Instead, she argues, disasters are far more likely to bring out the best in people -- there is a natural desire to help one another, which is actually easier to put into action, given the relaxation of social barriers that often prevails in the
wake of a disaster. You might go for years just nodding at that neighbor across the street, but after the earthquake/fire/blackout the two of you may just end up having a real conversation.
Solnit grounds her argument in five specific case studies:
* the San Francisco earthquake of 1906
* the 1917 explosion of the munitions ship Mont Blanc in Halifax, Nova Scotia
* Mexico City's 1985 earthquake
* the World Trade Center attacks of 2001
* Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
There were instances where a bad situation was made worse when those in power, through fear or panic, resorted to extreme and unwarranted measures (General Funston's imposition of de facto martial law following the SF quake, where soldiers were given license to shoot to kill anyone who did not cooperate satisfactorily; FEMA's and law enforcement's response after Katrina, where citizens were treated as likely criminals rather than people who needed to be helped). The fear-mongering narrative of barely contained pandemonium often finds traction with the media, but is rarely accurate. By detailed examination of the five case studies, Solnit makes an extremely convincing argument that the "natural" response to disaster is increased cooperation, a sense of solidarity and future possibility, indeed a degree of exhilaration among most survivors.
All five examples are interesting, but her discussion of the WTC attacks and Hurricane Katrina stand out as exceptionally measured, thoughtful and thought-provoking.
This is an extraordinary, wonderful book, which I recommend to everyone.
August 26, 2024
How we survive disasters by building communities...
The Good:
--5/5 for accessibility and the topic: reviving social imagination, especially for Western default liberals (i.e. cosmopolitan capitalism; Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies)
--The obvious pairing is to consider the different reactions to disasters:
i) Top-down: how capitalist power takes advantage of disasters, see: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
ii) Bottom-up: how the public rebuilds, see this book.
--To justify itself and secure social consent, unaccountable power relies on myths regarding “human nature” (i.e. selfish individuals); furthermore, capitalism has so degraded our expectations of each other that we imagine Thatcher’s proclamation: “There is no alternative!” …how can there be change if we cannot even imagine it? Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
--Disasters are momentary disruptions to the status quo, which provide insight to how people can act in an altered society. Do communities devolve into:
a) violent mobs or ruthless competitive individualists? Rulers and their intelligentsia sure want us to fear this, from Lord of the Flies) to Hollywood dystopia fiction (esp. zombie films), or...
b) do people step up and respond to social needs (more so than during status quo control, which by no coincidence strips the public of autonomy and renders them as passive spectators of the political theatre and mere cogs in the authoritarian capitalist workplace)?
...This book provides case studies that challenge status quo assumptions. Here's a post-COVID quote by Arundhati Roy:
-War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
...can this be harnessed for good? A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency
--Just as provocative, what are the elite's beliefs towards “the masses” during such crises? How do these beliefs affect the elite's responses to regain control, and how does this affect disaster relief and community healing?
--For more accessible intros to unpack the roots of violence and to revive social imagination:
1) David Graeber: challenging the morality of debt, the morality of work ethic, is democracy really just periodic voting for distant politicians?
-The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-(for a materialist critique of Graeber's idealism, see here).
-Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
2) Silvia Federici, Nancy Folbre: re-imagining society to value care
-Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto
The Bad/Missing:
--Once we move beyond elitist "human nature" myths (related: Malthusian myths of "overpopulation": Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis) and agree on utopian ideals, a constant debate between utopian anarchism and more pragmatic forms of real-world socialism is on immediate tactics: how do we defend against violent repression without reproducing violent structures?
i) Global North:
--I tend to assume utopian anarchism is more readily applicable in rich countries where there is more space (esp. for those with privileged through various identities) to practice a wider array of tactics, from protests (which is still an appeal to the authorities) to direct action (Direct Action: An Ethnography) to revolutionary parties (although these have often been purged: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism).
--Rich countries have more nuanced means of repression (Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky), although violence is still readily available especially towards targeted groups (ex. prison industrial complex).
--Consider the debate on Global North tactics of sabotage/property damage between (a) This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook vs. (b) How to Blow Up a Pipeline
--A minor point: Solnit's writing style can be meandering at times (I found the best case study was saved for last: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans)
ii) Global South:
--For colonized countries under siege, dire conditions have pushed revolutionary parties to the forefront whereas they have been neutralized in the Global North:
-ex. contradictions in the decolonization project's "united front": The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
-Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism
--To prevent a skewed outlook, geopolitical economy should be considered as part of the context, where imperialism is a crucial component. Nonviolence that does not actually challenge the status quo's violent structures is just as guilty of reproducing violent structures.
-ex. Vijay Prashad on imperialist ideological censorship
The Ugly:
--Hierarchical beliefs bringing out the worst in people and the vicious spiral that ensues...
The Good:
--5/5 for accessibility and the topic: reviving social imagination, especially for Western default liberals (i.e. cosmopolitan capitalism; Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies)
--The obvious pairing is to consider the different reactions to disasters:
i) Top-down: how capitalist power takes advantage of disasters, see: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
ii) Bottom-up: how the public rebuilds, see this book.
--To justify itself and secure social consent, unaccountable power relies on myths regarding “human nature” (i.e. selfish individuals); furthermore, capitalism has so degraded our expectations of each other that we imagine Thatcher’s proclamation: “There is no alternative!” …how can there be change if we cannot even imagine it? Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
--Disasters are momentary disruptions to the status quo, which provide insight to how people can act in an altered society. Do communities devolve into:
a) violent mobs or ruthless competitive individualists? Rulers and their intelligentsia sure want us to fear this, from Lord of the Flies) to Hollywood dystopia fiction (esp. zombie films), or...
b) do people step up and respond to social needs (more so than during status quo control, which by no coincidence strips the public of autonomy and renders them as passive spectators of the political theatre and mere cogs in the authoritarian capitalist workplace)?
...This book provides case studies that challenge status quo assumptions. Here's a post-COVID quote by Arundhati Roy:
Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.--Could this be the same fervor that war brings, the unleashing of a united noble cause (minus the arbitrary mass murder part, of course...)?
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
-“The Pandemic Is a Portal” in Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.
-War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
...can this be harnessed for good? A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency
--Just as provocative, what are the elite's beliefs towards “the masses” during such crises? How do these beliefs affect the elite's responses to regain control, and how does this affect disaster relief and community healing?
--For more accessible intros to unpack the roots of violence and to revive social imagination:
1) David Graeber: challenging the morality of debt, the morality of work ethic, is democracy really just periodic voting for distant politicians?
-The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-(for a materialist critique of Graeber's idealism, see here).
-Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
2) Silvia Federici, Nancy Folbre: re-imagining society to value care
-Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto
The Bad/Missing:
--Once we move beyond elitist "human nature" myths (related: Malthusian myths of "overpopulation": Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis) and agree on utopian ideals, a constant debate between utopian anarchism and more pragmatic forms of real-world socialism is on immediate tactics: how do we defend against violent repression without reproducing violent structures?
i) Global North:
--I tend to assume utopian anarchism is more readily applicable in rich countries where there is more space (esp. for those with privileged through various identities) to practice a wider array of tactics, from protests (which is still an appeal to the authorities) to direct action (Direct Action: An Ethnography) to revolutionary parties (although these have often been purged: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism).
--Rich countries have more nuanced means of repression (Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky), although violence is still readily available especially towards targeted groups (ex. prison industrial complex).
--Consider the debate on Global North tactics of sabotage/property damage between (a) This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook vs. (b) How to Blow Up a Pipeline
--A minor point: Solnit's writing style can be meandering at times (I found the best case study was saved for last: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans)
ii) Global South:
--For colonized countries under siege, dire conditions have pushed revolutionary parties to the forefront whereas they have been neutralized in the Global North:
-ex. contradictions in the decolonization project's "united front": The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
-Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism
--To prevent a skewed outlook, geopolitical economy should be considered as part of the context, where imperialism is a crucial component. Nonviolence that does not actually challenge the status quo's violent structures is just as guilty of reproducing violent structures.
-ex. Vijay Prashad on imperialist ideological censorship
The Ugly:
--Hierarchical beliefs bringing out the worst in people and the vicious spiral that ensues...
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty, and starvation, and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… [and] the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.
-Howard Zinn
October 30, 2022
In the book A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores the phenomena of how disasters throw people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.
However, despite its importance, the book is often tedious to read. The writing is dense and longwinded, with few poetic moments to break up the prose. The audiobook version is particularly awful, with a slow, monotone narration that makes it difficult to stay engaged with the material. I would much rather have Siri narrate me the story than whoever the narrator is.
That said, the book does contain many insightful examples that help to illustrate its main points. The case studies of various disasters- from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans- provide a compelling look at how humans react to crisis situations. In particular, Solnit's examination of the "elite panic" is thought-provoking and eye-opening.
Overall, A Paradise Built in Hell is a thought-provoking book that offers a unique perspective on disaster and human reaction. While it can be tedious to read at times, it is rich with insight and provides a much-needed look at this under-examined topic. If you're going to read it, skip the audiobook.
Highly recommend the Behind The Bastards podcast episode on “Elite Panic” if this topic is within your interests.
However, despite its importance, the book is often tedious to read. The writing is dense and longwinded, with few poetic moments to break up the prose. The audiobook version is particularly awful, with a slow, monotone narration that makes it difficult to stay engaged with the material. I would much rather have Siri narrate me the story than whoever the narrator is.
That said, the book does contain many insightful examples that help to illustrate its main points. The case studies of various disasters- from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans- provide a compelling look at how humans react to crisis situations. In particular, Solnit's examination of the "elite panic" is thought-provoking and eye-opening.
Overall, A Paradise Built in Hell is a thought-provoking book that offers a unique perspective on disaster and human reaction. While it can be tedious to read at times, it is rich with insight and provides a much-needed look at this under-examined topic. If you're going to read it, skip the audiobook.
Highly recommend the Behind The Bastards podcast episode on “Elite Panic” if this topic is within your interests.
June 6, 2012
Many folks might enjoy this book, but I'm not one of 'em.
There are two principle reasons for this, one of which is forgivable, the other is not.
The first is that this is a very personal book. No, it isn't TMI about the author, but her opinions and biases are evident throughout the story. When I see a title like this, I'm expecting something like what Simon Winchester has done numerous times (for example, this or this or especially this, or this one that turns out wasn't by him). Even this topic has been more-or-less done the way I expected. See, for example, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why. Those are pretty straightforward examples of the genre I thought Solnit was diving into.
But she delivered the Oprah version. That's okay, I guess. Some folks want the human side of things to get more time in the spotlight. And Solnit is strongest in the portions of this book where she is describing the actions and reactions of the folks involved in these disasters. Those segments were very absorbing, even if I had been hoping for more of the cognitive psychology and sociology about why living in the midst of a disaster is so invigorating and uplifting (I remember this phenomena from living through the '89 San Francisco earthquake).
Where Solnit's effort here loses my respect is when she blithely tosses in her political and ideological biases into the mix. Although her political affiliations aren't made explicit, her attitude reminds me of some friends that call themselves socio-anarchists. Not exactly uncommon in San Francisco.
For example, Apparently in her view, the police and the military are the tools of the bourgeoisie. Except for when one or two is portrayed as a member of a family (as seen in the stories of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake early in the book). There's a lot to be said regarding the ties between wealth and power and the degree to which the state's authority might be used too often and too casually in the service of private property. Actually, there's not just a lot to be said, there are volumes — nay, oceans to be said. A wise author would refrain from scattering opinions based on their own simplistic viewpoint in a book where it adds little or nothing. Solnit isn't that wise, so her ideology leaves a taint here that is likely to be unpleasant to anyone with more nuanced or different beliefs.
Of course, it could be said that an artist should be true to themselves, and she certainly has the right to create her book as she desires. But she might suffer for her integrity, cutting down the size of her readership.
Want a much better book written in a similar vein? Try Zeitoun by Dave Eggers' portrayal of one man's horror story during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• • • • • • •
San Francisco Public Library Announcement—
There are two principle reasons for this, one of which is forgivable, the other is not.
The first is that this is a very personal book. No, it isn't TMI about the author, but her opinions and biases are evident throughout the story. When I see a title like this, I'm expecting something like what Simon Winchester has done numerous times (for example, this or this or especially this, or this one that turns out wasn't by him). Even this topic has been more-or-less done the way I expected. See, for example, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why. Those are pretty straightforward examples of the genre I thought Solnit was diving into.
But she delivered the Oprah version. That's okay, I guess. Some folks want the human side of things to get more time in the spotlight. And Solnit is strongest in the portions of this book where she is describing the actions and reactions of the folks involved in these disasters. Those segments were very absorbing, even if I had been hoping for more of the cognitive psychology and sociology about why living in the midst of a disaster is so invigorating and uplifting (I remember this phenomena from living through the '89 San Francisco earthquake).
Where Solnit's effort here loses my respect is when she blithely tosses in her political and ideological biases into the mix. Although her political affiliations aren't made explicit, her attitude reminds me of some friends that call themselves socio-anarchists. Not exactly uncommon in San Francisco.
For example, Apparently in her view, the police and the military are the tools of the bourgeoisie. Except for when one or two is portrayed as a member of a family (as seen in the stories of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake early in the book). There's a lot to be said regarding the ties between wealth and power and the degree to which the state's authority might be used too often and too casually in the service of private property. Actually, there's not just a lot to be said, there are volumes — nay, oceans to be said. A wise author would refrain from scattering opinions based on their own simplistic viewpoint in a book where it adds little or nothing. Solnit isn't that wise, so her ideology leaves a taint here that is likely to be unpleasant to anyone with more nuanced or different beliefs.
Of course, it could be said that an artist should be true to themselves, and she certainly has the right to create her book as she desires. But she might suffer for her integrity, cutting down the size of her readership.
Want a much better book written in a similar vein? Try Zeitoun by Dave Eggers' portrayal of one man's horror story during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• • • • • • •
San Francisco Public Library Announcement—
SF Library Announces 2012 Citywide Book Club Pick
On Wednesday morning, city officials and other early risers attended a 5 a.m. ceremony at Lotta's Fountain to commemorate the 106th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. (The earthquake struck on April 18th at 5:12 in the morning.) The Market Street landmark served as a meeting point for citizens in the aftermath of the massive quake. As part of the ceremony, the San Francisco Public Library also announced this year's choice for the citywide book club, "One City, One Book": Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster."
In the book, Solnit, who lives in San Francisco, documents the sometimes positive outcomes that arise from disastrous situations that force communities to unite in the face of hardship. In addition to other manmade and natural disasters, she discusses the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. This is the 8th annual "One City, One Book" event, and this year the library is partnering with California Reads, an initiative started by the nonprofit Cal Humanities, which is hosting a series of reading and discussion programs around the theme of democracy in 2012. The library will also offer films, preparedness workshops, and an author talk in October.
August 30, 2020
Stories of disasters have largely come to us from journalists (who need to sell stories) and historians (telling the stories of Great Men). Rebecca Solnit argued that disaster stories ignore the contributions of the common man and the ways that people come together during a disaster to support each other to, instead, focus on the Great Men who saved the day from the mischief and incompetence of the common man (women rarely entering this story except to be saved).
Solnit asserted that there are, of course, people among the masses who respond poorly in a disaster, but that many people come together, support each other, and can become their best selves. Her stories of mutual aid, altruism against one's own personal interest, and community support during 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquakes in San Francisco and Mexico City, and more are inspiring. A city and the social order can be positively transformed by a disaster. These positive pieces are a good reminder during a pandemic.
These are not the stories commonly told. We hear about firefighters saving people from the World Trade Center following 9/11, but not the mutual support among people who would not typically have had two words for each other, civil or otherwise. We also don't hear as much about the problems in communication that led to the unnecessary deaths of many firefighters. We (I) believe that the government knows best and solves all problems, but Solnit argued that this was often not the case – at least not after the earthquakes in San Francisco and Mexico City, and not after Hurricane Katrina, where governmental intervention created bigger problems.
Hurricane Katrina was a particularly appalling example of the ways that government and those in power created problems that were not there. She suggested that many of these problems were the consequences of elite fear, racism, classism, and paranoid worldviews. Of course, sometimes this wasn't only due to elites, but also the actions of poor and middle class whites, more worried about their property than the Blacks who had lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods after the hurricane.
Told from the perspective of the elites (a word I hate), someone taking a loaf of bread is a thief and abhorrent, and should be responded to with extreme prejudice, including shoot to kill orders. Told from the perspective of a refugee, the word "looting" has a very different meaning. Such journalism "conflates the emergency requisitioning of supplies in a crisis without a cash economy with opportunistic stealing" (p. 37). This can lead to captioning a set of photos like this.
Solnit argued,
If the military notion that San Franciscans were a mob on the brink of mayhem were true, the right response to disaster was authoritarian, armed, and aggressive. If the main psychosocial consequence of disaster was a “millennial good fellowship,” then a very different and much milder response was appropriate... At stake in disaster is the question of human nature. (p. 49)
Solnit and others argued that war and disaster lead to destruction and carnage, but also offer meaning, purpose, and a reason for living. Quoting Chris Hedges, "Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidity of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble” (p. 65). Although we fear that things will fall apart during a disaster unless a hero comes along – just watch any disaster film, where heroes are required – disaster can as easily call on the very best in us.
You can imagine where I take this narrative in the midst of US mishandling of COVID. I am not saying that the rest of the world has it right, but it takes courage and grace to admit that one does not have all the answers and to turn, instead, to science and public health. Solnit offered examples of politicians who did act in the community's best interests following a disaster, but when one frames the world in terms of winning and losing, worthy and unworthy, and good and bad, it becomes more difficult to have the clarity of vision to see through a disaster to solutions (rather than only loss of power or possessions).
Unfortunately, this takes courage and grace.
Solnit asserted that there are, of course, people among the masses who respond poorly in a disaster, but that many people come together, support each other, and can become their best selves. Her stories of mutual aid, altruism against one's own personal interest, and community support during 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquakes in San Francisco and Mexico City, and more are inspiring. A city and the social order can be positively transformed by a disaster. These positive pieces are a good reminder during a pandemic.
These are not the stories commonly told. We hear about firefighters saving people from the World Trade Center following 9/11, but not the mutual support among people who would not typically have had two words for each other, civil or otherwise. We also don't hear as much about the problems in communication that led to the unnecessary deaths of many firefighters. We (I) believe that the government knows best and solves all problems, but Solnit argued that this was often not the case – at least not after the earthquakes in San Francisco and Mexico City, and not after Hurricane Katrina, where governmental intervention created bigger problems.
Hurricane Katrina was a particularly appalling example of the ways that government and those in power created problems that were not there. She suggested that many of these problems were the consequences of elite fear, racism, classism, and paranoid worldviews. Of course, sometimes this wasn't only due to elites, but also the actions of poor and middle class whites, more worried about their property than the Blacks who had lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods after the hurricane.
Told from the perspective of the elites (a word I hate), someone taking a loaf of bread is a thief and abhorrent, and should be responded to with extreme prejudice, including shoot to kill orders. Told from the perspective of a refugee, the word "looting" has a very different meaning. Such journalism "conflates the emergency requisitioning of supplies in a crisis without a cash economy with opportunistic stealing" (p. 37). This can lead to captioning a set of photos like this.
Solnit argued,
If the military notion that San Franciscans were a mob on the brink of mayhem were true, the right response to disaster was authoritarian, armed, and aggressive. If the main psychosocial consequence of disaster was a “millennial good fellowship,” then a very different and much milder response was appropriate... At stake in disaster is the question of human nature. (p. 49)
Solnit and others argued that war and disaster lead to destruction and carnage, but also offer meaning, purpose, and a reason for living. Quoting Chris Hedges, "Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidity of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble” (p. 65). Although we fear that things will fall apart during a disaster unless a hero comes along – just watch any disaster film, where heroes are required – disaster can as easily call on the very best in us.
You can imagine where I take this narrative in the midst of US mishandling of COVID. I am not saying that the rest of the world has it right, but it takes courage and grace to admit that one does not have all the answers and to turn, instead, to science and public health. Solnit offered examples of politicians who did act in the community's best interests following a disaster, but when one frames the world in terms of winning and losing, worthy and unworthy, and good and bad, it becomes more difficult to have the clarity of vision to see through a disaster to solutions (rather than only loss of power or possessions).
Unfortunately, this takes courage and grace.
October 8, 2016
Surprisingly disappointing. "A Paradise Built in Hell" is a political ramble poorly disguised as research into disasters and people's responses.
From the outset, Solnit's convictions are pretty clear: emergency services and government are bad, organic community of the pseudo-anarchistic persuasion are great, and any exceptions to those rules are barely worth mentioning. This leads to a tremendously haphazard investigation into various disasters, wherein Solnit mistakes anecdote for research.
It's a worthy read if you're looking for "Chicken Soup for the Survivor's Soul" type stories that never escape a singular political focus, but not if you care about research methods, open-minded inquiry, or complex and nuanced stories of disasters and response.
From the outset, Solnit's convictions are pretty clear: emergency services and government are bad, organic community of the pseudo-anarchistic persuasion are great, and any exceptions to those rules are barely worth mentioning. This leads to a tremendously haphazard investigation into various disasters, wherein Solnit mistakes anecdote for research.
It's a worthy read if you're looking for "Chicken Soup for the Survivor's Soul" type stories that never escape a singular political focus, but not if you care about research methods, open-minded inquiry, or complex and nuanced stories of disasters and response.
January 26, 2010
not solnit's best book, but still pretty remarkable. it's tough not to think of naomi klein's the shock doctrine while reading it. in a sense, it's a correction to some of klein's assumptions about community response in the face of catastrophes. both writers are extremely skeptical about neoliberal "relief" efforts - as well as state power in general. but solnit's perspective is more optimistic about grassroots organization - as well as more directly simpathetic to anarchism than her earlier work might imply. the books are also, frankly, similar in their tendency to cherry-pick info in support of an argument. some of the digressions in paradise lack the context necessary to really resonate (there's a bit about the sandanistas, for example, that feels uncharacteristically thin). part of the problem is that solnit has set up a more conventional, journalistic narrative here than in books like a field guide to getting lost. digressions are typically her strong suit (does any living writer digress as well as solnit?), but this book requires a more conventional approach to evidence. at its best, it's a fascinating look at collective action under dire circumstances. there's a section devoted to william james that ranks among my favorite solnit passages. by the end, i wasn't entirely sold on the transformative power of ordinary people, but i look to solnit on account of her belief in others, rather than in spite of it.
and frankly, who else writes so beautifully about political action? solnit indulges none of the miserable fatalism of most on the radical left, and avoids most breeds of may-of-68-nostalgia in the process. as far as i'm concerned, we need more voices like hers - and more books like this one.
and frankly, who else writes so beautifully about political action? solnit indulges none of the miserable fatalism of most on the radical left, and avoids most breeds of may-of-68-nostalgia in the process. as far as i'm concerned, we need more voices like hers - and more books like this one.
January 1, 2019
Some of my favorite Solnit yet.
David Graeber says there are two general axioms of (small-a) anarchism: 1) almost always, left to their own devices, humans are basically good; 2) almost always, power corrupts human goodness and leads to cruelty.
This book felt like the historical research capable of supporting this set of beliefs. In the aftermath of destruction, despite what the movies show us, people tend to engage in heroic acts to help people they've never met, and rapidly organize to create communal support systems. And authority figures tend to militarize and cause violence chaos out of an "elite panic" that private property is in danger.
Solnit engages two of my favorite thinkers, William James and Dorothy Day, centering their thought on the disaster they both lived through, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This is a long book, and was slow reading for me. But James' "moral equivalent of war" and Day's "other loves" were good thoughts to be stewing over for some weeks.
I loved Solnit's critique of the "fight or flight" rhetoric around crisis. She shows the research finding that many people, especially women, actually have a "tend and befriend" response to emergencies, building networks and making sure everyone is cared for.
I found myself caught up in Solnit's hopefulness: perhaps the pending Utah disasters of heatwave and megadrought will be met with this kind of community building! I also sometimes lost heart and grew skeptical. The 9/11 disaster only lead to endless war; the barrage of hurricanes lead to more and worse land grabs and development. Solnit offers an interesting critique of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, but doesn't convince me entirely: I feel suspended between the optimism and pessimism of the two.
But I do believe in those moments of recentering that disaster brings. Solnit quotes one resident of New York following the Trade Center attack: "No one went to work and everyone talked to strangers." May it ever be so, amen.
David Graeber says there are two general axioms of (small-a) anarchism: 1) almost always, left to their own devices, humans are basically good; 2) almost always, power corrupts human goodness and leads to cruelty.
This book felt like the historical research capable of supporting this set of beliefs. In the aftermath of destruction, despite what the movies show us, people tend to engage in heroic acts to help people they've never met, and rapidly organize to create communal support systems. And authority figures tend to militarize and cause violence chaos out of an "elite panic" that private property is in danger.
Solnit engages two of my favorite thinkers, William James and Dorothy Day, centering their thought on the disaster they both lived through, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This is a long book, and was slow reading for me. But James' "moral equivalent of war" and Day's "other loves" were good thoughts to be stewing over for some weeks.
I loved Solnit's critique of the "fight or flight" rhetoric around crisis. She shows the research finding that many people, especially women, actually have a "tend and befriend" response to emergencies, building networks and making sure everyone is cared for.
I found myself caught up in Solnit's hopefulness: perhaps the pending Utah disasters of heatwave and megadrought will be met with this kind of community building! I also sometimes lost heart and grew skeptical. The 9/11 disaster only lead to endless war; the barrage of hurricanes lead to more and worse land grabs and development. Solnit offers an interesting critique of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, but doesn't convince me entirely: I feel suspended between the optimism and pessimism of the two.
But I do believe in those moments of recentering that disaster brings. Solnit quotes one resident of New York following the Trade Center attack: "No one went to work and everyone talked to strangers." May it ever be so, amen.
February 3, 2010
I was ready to quibble with her premise, really, I was. I still sort of want to at parts of this book. But it's so beautiful, and it makes me believe that things are possible, that making the world better is possible.
Read it, and read it in conjunction with Barbara Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets."
Read it, and read it in conjunction with Barbara Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets."
February 18, 2023
Este libro explora la respuesta de las sociedades ante el desastre, a partir de tragedias específicas: el terremoto de 1905 en San Francisco, el terremoto de 1985 en Ciudad de México, el huracán Katrina en Nuevo Orleans en 2005, y al ataque de las Torres Gemelas. La autora expone la tesis de que, en las grandes catástrofes, con frecuencia la sociedad civil, la gente común y corriente, es la que mejor respuesta tiene ante la crisis mientras la autoridad parece retraerse o peor aún, tomar actitudes autoritarias, asumiendo que la ciudadanía entrará en pánico. La historia ha demostrado que esto es incorrecto y que esa idea de saqueos, atracos y violencia en las calles es algo que solo existe en las películas de Hollywood. Por ejemplo, en el caso de México, después del sismo de 1985, la sociedad civil fue la que se organizó en cuanto a rescates y labores de apoyo, mientras la autoridad intentó contener, prohibir y limitar dichas movilizaciones. Además de la solidaridad mostrada por los ciudadanos, algo más cambió: la sociedad se dio cuenta que tenía mucho poder y con ello, inició el quiebre de un sistema político autoritario que había dominado la vida nacional. Caso similar fue en Nicaragua, en la década de los 70.
En particular, quedé muy impactada por lo que la autora incluye en relación al huracán Katrina en los Estados Unidos. A pesar de que es una catástrofe reciente, no tenía idea de lo que había sucedido. Ahí las cosas no fueron tan sencillas para la población pues además de perder todo ante las fuerzas de la naturaleza, la situación empeoró por temas de racismo, discriminación y violencia policial. Es inconcebible que, en una tragedia de ese calibre, surgieran todos los prejuicios en contra de las personas negras y afroamericanas. En este caso, el resultado no fue tan esperanzador, pero, lo cierto es que la ciudad logró reconstruirse aun y con el abandono de las autoridades.
Una lectura sumamente informativa que invita a la reflexión. Sin embargo, no fue de mi total agrado ya que la escritura me pareció, en algunos capítulos, densa y que en ciertos pasajes se incluían detalles de más. Por ejemplo, el capítulo del terremoto de San Francisco fue muy largo y no lo encontré tan contundente o satisfactorio como otros.
En particular, quedé muy impactada por lo que la autora incluye en relación al huracán Katrina en los Estados Unidos. A pesar de que es una catástrofe reciente, no tenía idea de lo que había sucedido. Ahí las cosas no fueron tan sencillas para la población pues además de perder todo ante las fuerzas de la naturaleza, la situación empeoró por temas de racismo, discriminación y violencia policial. Es inconcebible que, en una tragedia de ese calibre, surgieran todos los prejuicios en contra de las personas negras y afroamericanas. En este caso, el resultado no fue tan esperanzador, pero, lo cierto es que la ciudad logró reconstruirse aun y con el abandono de las autoridades.
Una lectura sumamente informativa que invita a la reflexión. Sin embargo, no fue de mi total agrado ya que la escritura me pareció, en algunos capítulos, densa y que en ciertos pasajes se incluían detalles de más. Por ejemplo, el capítulo del terremoto de San Francisco fue muy largo y no lo encontré tan contundente o satisfactorio como otros.
Read
November 21, 2020While a revealing read, I felt this author wanted to say too much and left me with the impression of a wandering social critic. She wrote of five disasters: the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the Halifax ship explosion of 1917, the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She made an interesting point about how community forms during disaster, which can be very much at odds with government. She also noted that horizontally organized, ad-hoc responses can work wonders. I witnessed some of this in the weeks following 9/11 in and around New York City. I imagine this sense of community was the norm prior to the establishment of the modern nuclear family, of which much has been previously written.
Interestingly, Ms. Solnit chose to leave the implications of risk assumption untouched. When someone chooses to live in an earthquake or flood zone or chooses to site their business in a known terrorist target, what responsibility does society then bear? Clearly, poverty restricts movement, limiting choice. What of those who have the means to make better choices and refrain from doing so for their own short-term benefit? I’m curious to read more on this topic.
In the wake of our recent election and in the spirit of saying too much, I feel that the mythologies supporting militarism and racism mentioned in Ms. Solnit’s account are very much a part of our permanent culture and very much beyond hope of betterment. On a recent podcast, David Vine, author of United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, noted the US has been at war in every year since its founding but for 11. Ms. Solnit is swimming upstream if she expects our nation to embrace humanism. I also can’t help but reflect on the epidemic level of illogical thought in America. There is a positive here, however. If so many are so willing to fall for a political con-man, then there is a treasure trove of potential consumers for all sorts of silly products, potential consumers willing to believe anything and ripe for the plucking. Have at ‘em folks.
Interestingly, Ms. Solnit chose to leave the implications of risk assumption untouched. When someone chooses to live in an earthquake or flood zone or chooses to site their business in a known terrorist target, what responsibility does society then bear? Clearly, poverty restricts movement, limiting choice. What of those who have the means to make better choices and refrain from doing so for their own short-term benefit? I’m curious to read more on this topic.
In the wake of our recent election and in the spirit of saying too much, I feel that the mythologies supporting militarism and racism mentioned in Ms. Solnit’s account are very much a part of our permanent culture and very much beyond hope of betterment. On a recent podcast, David Vine, author of United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, noted the US has been at war in every year since its founding but for 11. Ms. Solnit is swimming upstream if she expects our nation to embrace humanism. I also can’t help but reflect on the epidemic level of illogical thought in America. There is a positive here, however. If so many are so willing to fall for a political con-man, then there is a treasure trove of potential consumers for all sorts of silly products, potential consumers willing to believe anything and ripe for the plucking. Have at ‘em folks.
April 2, 2012
So, yeah, by the time I dragged myself across the finish line I was so oversaturated with Solnit's passion for community that I wanted to hole up in some remote mountain cabin with guns and ammunition and food and books as far away from human contact as possible. I didn't want to hug or look with warmth upon another human being ever again. I'm glad she presents examples of people acting with compassion and resilience under disastrous conditions, and is such an incorrigible optimist, but I couldn't help think that this book was WAY too enamored of its premise. And it was so clogged with cliched activist-speak it approached unreadability at times. But let's face it, my own misanthropy was close to terminal long before Rebecca Solnit and I ever crossed paths and no amount of Rainbow Family soup kitchen food will probably ever change that. I sure hope she's right when the shit goes down.
December 20, 2019
Uff, it breaks my heart to give this 3 stars. I love Solnit's writing, and was really looking forward to this book because of the fascinating premise. But with high expectations comes the potential for disappointment. Honestly if I hadn't read her work before I would have found the content really interesting, but since I know how well she can write, I was disappointed by how repetitive and yet not cohesive the book felt. Every section summed up is essentially: "everyone thinks people are selfish hooligans, but here's a random example of people in an extreme situation being nice to each other. And here's a random philosopher who agrees people can be nice. So we could live in a socialist paradise if we wanted to!"
Anyway, go in without expectations and you'll probably like it more than I did!
Anyway, go in without expectations and you'll probably like it more than I did!
January 4, 2022
Disasters abound. In my work I've found myself to be, in some way, involved in disaster and emergency response for the past two years. At first it was with COVID-19, which abruptly shocked and disrupted the community that I love and continues to live its long life in the lives of billions of us every single day. Then, this past summer, it was a series of wildfires that ravaged the interior of my home province. And then, a couple months ago, it was a flood.
Each time, the organization where I work stepped up to try and be a part of the solution, and each time our impact was felt and important. I'm fortunate that I can say that we made a difference, and we continue to be involved in difference-making. We've collectively learned a lot through the process, and now we are building out an operational and community impact preparedness plan so that we, as an organization, can be even more prepared to respond to immediate emerging needs. Disasters are around us everywhere.
It was high time that I read this book, which has been sitting on my shelf for a few years now, and I took a week off from work over the holidays because, well, quite simply it needed to be done, and this book is one of those things I decided to dive into. I'm glad I did, and I look forward to sharing it with others at work. It gives me great hope in people, and reduces dramatically my hope in what can be accomplished by centralizing forces - especially in a time of disaster. It also, to great effect, deepens my curiousity about whether that is a good thing at all.
Solnit's main argument in this book is that people are, generally, incredible responsive to disasters; and for the vast majority of us the response is one of altruism, aid, support, and a commitment to supporting others through the times that tug at our bonds. She highlights that this is counter-intuitive at times to the survival of individuals, but it is highly intuitive as a decentralized model of decision making in a moment when many decisions need to be made in every moment. She also points out that this is contrary to what people are told the response to any disaster really is - we expect riots, looting, thoughtless attacks on human dignity because everybody pursues their own best interests when there is no clear authority to direct their energies; what we discover are boundless acts to ensure people are safe, fed, housed, and cared for.
She does the right thing in tying this form of reaction to the ideal of Mutual Aid, even if the vast majority of people who are caught up in disasters and responding by setting up communities of care, rapid response food chains, or helping rescue people from the rubble of an earthquake would never have heard the term before. These actions are, actually, mutual aid.
She also does the better thing, and suggests that the (dis)order of mutual aid is almost like a natural manner for humans in crisis to respond when they are part of community, in community, and dependent on the health and well-being of community. That all seems right and good to me. But then she goes one insight further and plants an incredible seed:
What if these brief-living communities that we build in response to crises are actually the communities that we want to live in but feel incapable of experiencing without the sudden, abrupt, life-time defining alteration caused by Disaster? What if it is actually the world we want to live in, and these beautiful spaces we build together with shocking speed and commitment to the collective wellbeing, what if this way of behaving is how we collectively know we can best operate, almost instinctually? What if this means that our everyday experience, in those days when we don't live in disaster zones, is a crisis of its very own?
I don't want to put words into her mouth - and I very well might be already - but I think this insight is one of those ones you encounter that gives you a sense of hope for all of us. And we live in dark times right now, what with a pandemic, and climate change, and political uncertainty, and much more, so this unexpected hope is something that is very much appreciated.
I'm going back to work tomorrow, and sometime this week I'll find myself in a Senior Management Team meeting with the rest of the highest ranking leaders of the organizations where I work, and I'll recommend to all of them that they give this book a go. It will hopefully help us build our strategy, our ideal, and our commitment to preparing for and responding to whatever forthcoming disasters await us. Hopefully I can help push us into the direction of an organization that fosters and builds upon the ideal of mutual aid at all times; somehow I think that human inertia might just take us there anyways.
Each time, the organization where I work stepped up to try and be a part of the solution, and each time our impact was felt and important. I'm fortunate that I can say that we made a difference, and we continue to be involved in difference-making. We've collectively learned a lot through the process, and now we are building out an operational and community impact preparedness plan so that we, as an organization, can be even more prepared to respond to immediate emerging needs. Disasters are around us everywhere.
It was high time that I read this book, which has been sitting on my shelf for a few years now, and I took a week off from work over the holidays because, well, quite simply it needed to be done, and this book is one of those things I decided to dive into. I'm glad I did, and I look forward to sharing it with others at work. It gives me great hope in people, and reduces dramatically my hope in what can be accomplished by centralizing forces - especially in a time of disaster. It also, to great effect, deepens my curiousity about whether that is a good thing at all.
Solnit's main argument in this book is that people are, generally, incredible responsive to disasters; and for the vast majority of us the response is one of altruism, aid, support, and a commitment to supporting others through the times that tug at our bonds. She highlights that this is counter-intuitive at times to the survival of individuals, but it is highly intuitive as a decentralized model of decision making in a moment when many decisions need to be made in every moment. She also points out that this is contrary to what people are told the response to any disaster really is - we expect riots, looting, thoughtless attacks on human dignity because everybody pursues their own best interests when there is no clear authority to direct their energies; what we discover are boundless acts to ensure people are safe, fed, housed, and cared for.
She does the right thing in tying this form of reaction to the ideal of Mutual Aid, even if the vast majority of people who are caught up in disasters and responding by setting up communities of care, rapid response food chains, or helping rescue people from the rubble of an earthquake would never have heard the term before. These actions are, actually, mutual aid.
She also does the better thing, and suggests that the (dis)order of mutual aid is almost like a natural manner for humans in crisis to respond when they are part of community, in community, and dependent on the health and well-being of community. That all seems right and good to me. But then she goes one insight further and plants an incredible seed:
What if these brief-living communities that we build in response to crises are actually the communities that we want to live in but feel incapable of experiencing without the sudden, abrupt, life-time defining alteration caused by Disaster? What if it is actually the world we want to live in, and these beautiful spaces we build together with shocking speed and commitment to the collective wellbeing, what if this way of behaving is how we collectively know we can best operate, almost instinctually? What if this means that our everyday experience, in those days when we don't live in disaster zones, is a crisis of its very own?
I don't want to put words into her mouth - and I very well might be already - but I think this insight is one of those ones you encounter that gives you a sense of hope for all of us. And we live in dark times right now, what with a pandemic, and climate change, and political uncertainty, and much more, so this unexpected hope is something that is very much appreciated.
I'm going back to work tomorrow, and sometime this week I'll find myself in a Senior Management Team meeting with the rest of the highest ranking leaders of the organizations where I work, and I'll recommend to all of them that they give this book a go. It will hopefully help us build our strategy, our ideal, and our commitment to preparing for and responding to whatever forthcoming disasters await us. Hopefully I can help push us into the direction of an organization that fosters and builds upon the ideal of mutual aid at all times; somehow I think that human inertia might just take us there anyways.
March 1, 2021
Great! I found it a bit scattered in the beginning, but it all fell into place by the end.
A great exploration of mutual aid- that isn't written by an insufferable anarchist for once.
A few times in the book, Solnit criticizes Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine". I think these two texts are not only compatible but complementary. Reading Solnit's work and then Klein's would draw a nice throughline of how Elite Panic can thwart mutual aid, and can then devolve into shock doctrine style disaster capitalism.
It was reassuring borrowing this book from the library and finding little highlights in the margins from community members who had checked it out before.
Basically, People tend to help each other out.
A great exploration of mutual aid- that isn't written by an insufferable anarchist for once.
A few times in the book, Solnit criticizes Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine". I think these two texts are not only compatible but complementary. Reading Solnit's work and then Klein's would draw a nice throughline of how Elite Panic can thwart mutual aid, and can then devolve into shock doctrine style disaster capitalism.
It was reassuring borrowing this book from the library and finding little highlights in the margins from community members who had checked it out before.
Basically, People tend to help each other out.
June 15, 2013
A fascinating exploration of how people actually behave in the aftermath of disasters and why some disasters lead to an upsurge of community while others lead to social chaos. Solnit shows through sociological research and numerous anecdotes how the belief that the masses naturally panic during disasters is a myth created in large part by social forces trying to stay in power and fueled by media hype. If given the chance, Solnit suggests, strangers will go to extraordinary lengths to help one another, finding a redemptive and even euphoric sense of camaraderie and community in the immediate aftermath of disaster, when social barriers are broken down. This spirit of community is ruined, however, when government and law enforcement treat the public as if they were more dangerous than the disaster itself, as happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, when officials deemed it more important to protect property from looters than save stranded evacuees. Solnit suggests that if government and law enforcement officials trust the people they are sworn to protect, the public can be a powerful ally in rebuilding and recovering in the aftermath of disaster.
April 10, 2019
Writing style: garbage
Editing: garbage
Premise: Could have been interesting, but became so contrived and biased it dissolved into a steamy pile of garbage
Narrator in Audiable: super garbage
Overall rating: landfill
Editing: garbage
Premise: Could have been interesting, but became so contrived and biased it dissolved into a steamy pile of garbage
Narrator in Audiable: super garbage
Overall rating: landfill
October 11, 2024
Interesante libro que estudia el funcionamiento de la gente en las catástrofes. Sigue el hilo de cinco grandes desastres (el terremoto de San Francisco de 1906, la explosión de Halifax de 1917, el terremoto de Ciudad de México de 1985, el 11 de septiembre y el Katrina), aunque menciona bastantes más de manera secundaria, como el terremoto de Managua de 1972 o el de Loma Prieta de 1989.
El libro argumenta que, ante un desastre, las elites entran en pánico y empiezan a concebir a la gente como enemigos. Estas elites creen en una humanidad hobbesiana, que está siempre lista para lanzarse a una orgía de saqueos, disturbios y violencia. Estas ideas, que han sido reforzadas por básicamente toda nuestra cultura popular (en la cual la respuesta a los desastres cae en manos de un héroe de acción masculino mientras la masa cae en pánico), dificultan la respuesta de estas elites al desastre y, de hecho, lo agravan. Ayuda que llega tarde, víctimas tratadas como delincuentes, burocracia lenta, etc.
Y, sin embargo, no es eso lo que ocurre en los desastres. A partir de los estudios de los sociólogos del desastre y de una importante investigación periodística que ha recabado decenas de testimonios, la autora construye la tesis opuesta: en las catástrofes, la gente tiende a organizarse de forma espontánea, creando breves utopías que funcionan razonablemente bien durante un tiempo y que a veces logran cambios permanentes. Estas comunidades y redes permiten que la gente obtenga incluso sentimientos positivos (satisfacción, alegría, vínculos personales) cuando trabaja por los demás miembros de su comunidad.
Dos de las ideas que más relevantes me han parecido son:
- El "equivalente moral de la guerra": la guerra es horrible, pero saca a la luz virtudes como valentía o unidad. ¿Podría haber un equivalente, que permitiera exteriorizar las mismas virtudes sin que nos estemos matando entre nosotros? Quizás los desastres puedan tener ese sentido.
- Los vínculos entre desastres, carnavales, revoluciones y activismo. Solnit habla de cómo la vida diaria es tan complicada de llevar y tan llena de compromisos que no queremos, que a veces concebimos los momento de ruptura como formas de liberación. Estos momentos de ruptura son efímeros por naturaleza, porque enseguida se recupera la normalidad o se construye otra nueva, pero son importantes.
Leyendo el libro he estado pensando en los propios desastres que yo he vivido, como el 11-M, el COVID o Filomena. Y es cierto que yo tenía en la cabeza la idea de desastre como pistoletazo de salida para la violencia, mientras comprobaba en mis carnes que no era así: la gente donando sangre tras el atentado, mis vecinos fundando una red de apoyo para las personas que no podían salir a hacer la compra durante la enfermedad o quitando nieve de las calles después de la nevada... Y mientras tanto, las instituciones a por uvas. Da bastante que pensar.
En la parte negativa, el hilo está escrito por una señora yanqui de mediana edad, y entonces está lleno de bobadas sobre redención, salvación, sentido, comunidad o incluso el propio paraíso que aparece en el subtítulo. A veces agota tanta referencia a la alegría y tanta sospechosa mención a lo bien que se sintieron los voluntarios que fueron a ayudar. Pero, si estás dispuesto a no tenérselo muy en cuenta, estamos ante un buen libro.
El libro argumenta que, ante un desastre, las elites entran en pánico y empiezan a concebir a la gente como enemigos. Estas elites creen en una humanidad hobbesiana, que está siempre lista para lanzarse a una orgía de saqueos, disturbios y violencia. Estas ideas, que han sido reforzadas por básicamente toda nuestra cultura popular (en la cual la respuesta a los desastres cae en manos de un héroe de acción masculino mientras la masa cae en pánico), dificultan la respuesta de estas elites al desastre y, de hecho, lo agravan. Ayuda que llega tarde, víctimas tratadas como delincuentes, burocracia lenta, etc.
Y, sin embargo, no es eso lo que ocurre en los desastres. A partir de los estudios de los sociólogos del desastre y de una importante investigación periodística que ha recabado decenas de testimonios, la autora construye la tesis opuesta: en las catástrofes, la gente tiende a organizarse de forma espontánea, creando breves utopías que funcionan razonablemente bien durante un tiempo y que a veces logran cambios permanentes. Estas comunidades y redes permiten que la gente obtenga incluso sentimientos positivos (satisfacción, alegría, vínculos personales) cuando trabaja por los demás miembros de su comunidad.
Dos de las ideas que más relevantes me han parecido son:
- El "equivalente moral de la guerra": la guerra es horrible, pero saca a la luz virtudes como valentía o unidad. ¿Podría haber un equivalente, que permitiera exteriorizar las mismas virtudes sin que nos estemos matando entre nosotros? Quizás los desastres puedan tener ese sentido.
- Los vínculos entre desastres, carnavales, revoluciones y activismo. Solnit habla de cómo la vida diaria es tan complicada de llevar y tan llena de compromisos que no queremos, que a veces concebimos los momento de ruptura como formas de liberación. Estos momentos de ruptura son efímeros por naturaleza, porque enseguida se recupera la normalidad o se construye otra nueva, pero son importantes.
Leyendo el libro he estado pensando en los propios desastres que yo he vivido, como el 11-M, el COVID o Filomena. Y es cierto que yo tenía en la cabeza la idea de desastre como pistoletazo de salida para la violencia, mientras comprobaba en mis carnes que no era así: la gente donando sangre tras el atentado, mis vecinos fundando una red de apoyo para las personas que no podían salir a hacer la compra durante la enfermedad o quitando nieve de las calles después de la nevada... Y mientras tanto, las instituciones a por uvas. Da bastante que pensar.
En la parte negativa, el hilo está escrito por una señora yanqui de mediana edad, y entonces está lleno de bobadas sobre redención, salvación, sentido, comunidad o incluso el propio paraíso que aparece en el subtítulo. A veces agota tanta referencia a la alegría y tanta sospechosa mención a lo bien que se sintieron los voluntarios que fueron a ayudar. Pero, si estás dispuesto a no tenérselo muy en cuenta, estamos ante un buen libro.
September 6, 2019
The author has a really interesting, counter intuitive thesis with some really fascinating individual stories and a bunch of intriguing asides. Unfortunately, I found it to be really brought down by the repetitive nature of the book and poor organization. It's a shame, because I feel like better editing could have turned this into a compelling read.
January 24, 2024
El trabajo de Solnit siempre me impresiona. En este libro sobre qué ocurre con los humanos tras las grandes catástrofes, logra probar que a pesar de que pensemos que tendemos al mal, en momentos de crisis sale lo mejor de nosotros. Es muy esperanzador en verdad. Aunque me ponga escéptica con este tipo de positivismo, lo detallada de su investigación hace casi imposible ponerse en contra.
May 4, 2022
Not where I would start with Solnit. Beautifully written, but somewhat unsure or undecided about the arguments. Will possibly be something I will revisit. I do think this book or at least a premise using the backbones of this project would be aided with a visual medium like a short docu series. 3.5
September 7, 2020
I want to hate this book, but I don’t want to be a curmudgeon, so I’ve taken a step back, done some mindful breathing, and cracked open Dr. Mark Epstein’s Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself, and I think it’s working a bit. Solnit appears to be a desperately optimistic person trying to sell the “better angels of our nature” theory, but for me she fails utterly in this undertaking. I see her as one of those Mardi Gras and Burning Man neo-bohemians who get their highs off collective euphoria, participating in the hormone-fueled zeal of mutual fellowship and camaraderie. I feel that at metal shows, head-banging in unison with dozens or hundreds or thousands of others. I felt something similar alongside my soldiers after IED, RPG, and mortar attacks in Iraq. That’s wonderful, truly, but it’s also incredibly naive. She runs us through a few examples of disaster to focus on the motes of benevolent light floating within the existential darkness of Causality. Take a micro-example such as this: a Black kid with his hands in the air is shot in the back seven times by a White cop. Solnit would like us to focus on the loving, empathetic people that helped the kid, and disregard the barbarous, race-based murder by an authority figure. That’s fine and well and kindhearted, but it ignores everything else, especially the meta-issues of systemic racism and police brutality towards non-Caucasians in the twenty-first century. What’s more, you could watch Frontline’s 2-hour episode “Once Upon a Time in Iraq” (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/fi...) and glean two moments of Solnit’s shrink-wrapped “paradise” as Iraqis celebrated the “liberation” of our illegal invasion in 2003, and then again as the “last troops left” in 2011. Let’s give each of these periods of “serenity” and “paradise” a week at best, before the chaos and carnage left no family in Iraq devoid of trauma. Her chosen word of “paradise” and the repeated phrase “disaster utopia” are truly fantastical ephemera, while the harrowing hellishness lasts much, much longer, and humanity easily reverts back to basic sectarian divisions, be them Shia and Sunni, the Left and the Right, North-siders and South-siders, rich and poor, Black and White, “us” and “them”, etc., etc.
“A disaster sometimes wipes the slate clean like a jubilee, and it is those disasters that beget joy, while the ones that increase injustice and isolation beget bitterness—the ‘corrosive community’ of which disaster scholars speak. Some, perhaps all, do both. That is to say, a disaster is an end, a climax of ruin and death, but it is also a beginning, an opening, a chance to start over” (251). What Solnit wants to revel in is the jubilation of the survivors, a carnival, a fiesta of that sudden and momentary reorientation of one’s perspectives in the aftermath of atrocity, when having faced Death head-on and told the Grim Reaper “not today, my friend”. Wonderful. Whimsical. Starry-eyed. Welcome to the Survivor’s Club—I’m a Platinum member.
I was curious if she stuck her head over the battlements of the pandemic and the US government’s complete incompetence in handling it, wondering if her positivity would hold up with the chaos and growing sectarianism we’re all undergoing, and sure enough she wrote a long piece for The Guardian back in April (2020): https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
. . . and again in May: https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
. . . and another for Mother Jones in May: https://www.motherjones.com/media/202...
And as far as I can tell, nothing more since. Has her hope withered? Hope, hope, hope. Happy, happy, joy-joy. Thoughts and prayers, halos and angel wings. Yes, humankind will get through this pandemic, just as much as it will get through anything else (minus a solid asteroid strike, or a massive nuclear war). Many have and will continue to die, but most will survive. Such is life on planet Earth. As Epstein writes: “We are human as a result of suffering, not in spite of it” (p. 98).
Of course people can be nice and even work together in times of extreme crises, and yes, sometimes great change can come about through any catastrophe, be it a tsunami, a protracted war, or a pandemic: that’s the essence of HUMAN HISTORY. Just because a Jewish man helps a Muslim man escape the falling wreckage of the Twin Towers does not mean everyone is a saint all the time. She does emphasize how the nature of a community enhances or hinders her desired outcomes, to be fair. She also nails “mass media” down as catering to the negative over the positive, and helping foment division and disinformation all too often. Kudos to that. What was eye-opening was her condemnation of “elite panic”, where she quotes Lee Clarke (who helped coin the term “elite panic”) writing: “Disaster myths are not politically neutral, but rather work systematically to the advantage of the elites. Elites cling to the panic myth because to acknowledge the truth of the situation would lead to different policy prescriptions” (193). They sure do, and are doing it right this moment. The US is always ready to mobilize militarized police, the national guard, and other Homeland Security elements in the face of public turmoil, more often than not as tools against the public based on historical, and historically racists, fears. I see Solnit desiring a police-free society where everyone gets along and helps one another out all the time, mirroring the prime tenets of all major religions, with continuous multicultural block parties forevermore. Does anyone NOT want that? What a beautiful illusion to dream about.
Solnit is banking on super-positivity and she has every right to—we need it (5 stars); however, this book is unconvincing to me in its main drive because she discounts so much about human nature to spotlight what she wants to believe in (1 star), probably as much as I am doing right now (so, 3 stars). Argh, deep belly-breaths . . . and so it goes.
“A disaster sometimes wipes the slate clean like a jubilee, and it is those disasters that beget joy, while the ones that increase injustice and isolation beget bitterness—the ‘corrosive community’ of which disaster scholars speak. Some, perhaps all, do both. That is to say, a disaster is an end, a climax of ruin and death, but it is also a beginning, an opening, a chance to start over” (251). What Solnit wants to revel in is the jubilation of the survivors, a carnival, a fiesta of that sudden and momentary reorientation of one’s perspectives in the aftermath of atrocity, when having faced Death head-on and told the Grim Reaper “not today, my friend”. Wonderful. Whimsical. Starry-eyed. Welcome to the Survivor’s Club—I’m a Platinum member.
I was curious if she stuck her head over the battlements of the pandemic and the US government’s complete incompetence in handling it, wondering if her positivity would hold up with the chaos and growing sectarianism we’re all undergoing, and sure enough she wrote a long piece for The Guardian back in April (2020): https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
. . . and again in May: https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
. . . and another for Mother Jones in May: https://www.motherjones.com/media/202...
And as far as I can tell, nothing more since. Has her hope withered? Hope, hope, hope. Happy, happy, joy-joy. Thoughts and prayers, halos and angel wings. Yes, humankind will get through this pandemic, just as much as it will get through anything else (minus a solid asteroid strike, or a massive nuclear war). Many have and will continue to die, but most will survive. Such is life on planet Earth. As Epstein writes: “We are human as a result of suffering, not in spite of it” (p. 98).
Of course people can be nice and even work together in times of extreme crises, and yes, sometimes great change can come about through any catastrophe, be it a tsunami, a protracted war, or a pandemic: that’s the essence of HUMAN HISTORY. Just because a Jewish man helps a Muslim man escape the falling wreckage of the Twin Towers does not mean everyone is a saint all the time. She does emphasize how the nature of a community enhances or hinders her desired outcomes, to be fair. She also nails “mass media” down as catering to the negative over the positive, and helping foment division and disinformation all too often. Kudos to that. What was eye-opening was her condemnation of “elite panic”, where she quotes Lee Clarke (who helped coin the term “elite panic”) writing: “Disaster myths are not politically neutral, but rather work systematically to the advantage of the elites. Elites cling to the panic myth because to acknowledge the truth of the situation would lead to different policy prescriptions” (193). They sure do, and are doing it right this moment. The US is always ready to mobilize militarized police, the national guard, and other Homeland Security elements in the face of public turmoil, more often than not as tools against the public based on historical, and historically racists, fears. I see Solnit desiring a police-free society where everyone gets along and helps one another out all the time, mirroring the prime tenets of all major religions, with continuous multicultural block parties forevermore. Does anyone NOT want that? What a beautiful illusion to dream about.
Solnit is banking on super-positivity and she has every right to—we need it (5 stars); however, this book is unconvincing to me in its main drive because she discounts so much about human nature to spotlight what she wants to believe in (1 star), probably as much as I am doing right now (so, 3 stars). Argh, deep belly-breaths . . . and so it goes.
September 14, 2020
A Paradise Built in Hell has a revolutionary message: everything you know about human behaviour during natural disasters is wrong. The popular image from movies involves mindless crowds of panicked humans. That, within minutes of the veneer of civilization being peeled back, people devolve to theft, rape, and murder. That the disaster itself is so psychologically traumatic that millions of people will have the equivalent of PTSD and need years of counseling.
Solnit shows with case studies -- the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the Halifax explosion of 1917, the London Blitz of 1940, the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, New Orleans in 2005, New York City on 9/11 -- that the popular imagining of how humans react in disaster isn't true.
She then dives into "disaster research" and shows that it isn't true beyond just those anecdotes.
The reality is, instead, an uplifting picture of the fundamental good of humanity. Altruism is widespread. Communities form. Solnit's message is fundamentally anarchist -- in the sense of "we don't need big-G Government to solve problems for us and save us". It is a message that virtually everyone on the political spectrum should embrace.
If this was all Solnit gave us, the book would be enlightening but also repetitive. (And it does, unfortunately, get repetitive ... more on the bad parts at the end.) But one of the great strengths of the book is that Solnit uses this as a springboard to two related issues: elite panic and the curious "startling joy" of survivors.
The first is "elite panic" (and related issues of media misrepresentation). Solnit makes a decent case that a lot of the ill-effects of disaster are caused by official responses. While she does rail against the general slowness of bureaucracy per se, she also makes a good case that a lot of it is also due to an elite that protects property over people and is worried about maintaining their privileged positions. The nature of the (generally poor) centralized government response also calls into question the legitimacy and competency of those very leaders.
Solnit also shows us that many of those who experience a disaster look back on it fondly. Of course, it isn't the material deprivation or the human tragedies that cause that. It is that a disaster strips away the anomie of modern atomistic life.
Suddenly the problems are immediate and have obvious solutions. Need clean drinking water today? Gone are the intractable problems that modern society normally deals with. Instead the things people seem to crave most -- and struggle to receive in the modern world -- are in abundance: connection, participation, altruism, compassion, purposefulness.
For all of its strengths, A Paradise Built in Hell is not flawless. The first three chapters are 5-star material but the same can't be said for the last two chapters. The chapter on New York's response to 9/11 is long, detailed, and adds nothing much of consequence. She appears to have done some original reporting and feels a need to include it even though it doesn't really add anything she hasn't already covered. It is needless repetition of the same points she made already using previous disasters as an example.
The final chapter on New Orleans is even worse because it seems to actively undermine her previous points. While some elements are still present -- elite panic, media misrepresentation, and so on (remember the early news stories about hundreds of rapes & murders in the New Orleans Superdome?) -- Solnit also repeatedly makes clear that much of the rest of her thesis doesn't really hold. After all -- Solnit repeatedly makes this distinction -- New Orleans wasn't a "disaster" it was a "catastrophe" and it overwhelmed any possibility for a groundswell of communitarian mutual aid.
Her key point is that even in a disaster the majority of people are largely unaffected and the community can (relatively) quickly get back on its feet. But with New Orleans the scale and kind of devastation made that impossible.
Based on the strength of the first three chapter I still recommend A Paradise Built in Hell. I highly recommend the first three chapters and I just as strongly recommend you don't read the final two chapters.
Solnit shows with case studies -- the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the Halifax explosion of 1917, the London Blitz of 1940, the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, New Orleans in 2005, New York City on 9/11 -- that the popular imagining of how humans react in disaster isn't true.
She then dives into "disaster research" and shows that it isn't true beyond just those anecdotes.
Subsequent researchers have combed the evidence as meticulously—in one case examining the behavior of two thousand people in more than nine hundred fires—and concluded that the behavior was mostly rational, sometimes altruistic, and never about the beast within when the thin veneer of civilization is peeled off. Except in the movies and the popular imagination. And in the media. And in some remaining disaster plans.
The reality is, instead, an uplifting picture of the fundamental good of humanity. Altruism is widespread. Communities form. Solnit's message is fundamentally anarchist -- in the sense of "we don't need big-G Government to solve problems for us and save us". It is a message that virtually everyone on the political spectrum should embrace.
If this was all Solnit gave us, the book would be enlightening but also repetitive. (And it does, unfortunately, get repetitive ... more on the bad parts at the end.) But one of the great strengths of the book is that Solnit uses this as a springboard to two related issues: elite panic and the curious "startling joy" of survivors.
The first is "elite panic" (and related issues of media misrepresentation). Solnit makes a decent case that a lot of the ill-effects of disaster are caused by official responses. While she does rail against the general slowness of bureaucracy per se, she also makes a good case that a lot of it is also due to an elite that protects property over people and is worried about maintaining their privileged positions. The nature of the (generally poor) centralized government response also calls into question the legitimacy and competency of those very leaders.
One reason that disasters are threatening to elites is that power devolves to the people on the ground in many ways: it is the neighbors who are the first responders and who assemble the impromptu kitchens and networks to rebuild. And it demonstrates the viability of a dispersed, decentralized system of decision making.
Solnit also shows us that many of those who experience a disaster look back on it fondly. Of course, it isn't the material deprivation or the human tragedies that cause that. It is that a disaster strips away the anomie of modern atomistic life.
In other words, disaster offers temporary solutions to the alienations and isolations of everyday life: disasters may be a physical hell, but they result however temporarily in what may be regarded as a kind of social utopia.
Suddenly the problems are immediate and have obvious solutions. Need clean drinking water today? Gone are the intractable problems that modern society normally deals with. Instead the things people seem to crave most -- and struggle to receive in the modern world -- are in abundance: connection, participation, altruism, compassion, purposefulness.
Indeed, disaster could be called a crash course in Buddhist principles of compassion for all beings, of nonattachment, of abandoning the illusion of one’s sense of separateness, of being fully present, of awareness of ephemerality, and of fearlessness or at least aplomb in the face of uncertainty.
For all of its strengths, A Paradise Built in Hell is not flawless. The first three chapters are 5-star material but the same can't be said for the last two chapters. The chapter on New York's response to 9/11 is long, detailed, and adds nothing much of consequence. She appears to have done some original reporting and feels a need to include it even though it doesn't really add anything she hasn't already covered. It is needless repetition of the same points she made already using previous disasters as an example.
The final chapter on New Orleans is even worse because it seems to actively undermine her previous points. While some elements are still present -- elite panic, media misrepresentation, and so on (remember the early news stories about hundreds of rapes & murders in the New Orleans Superdome?) -- Solnit also repeatedly makes clear that much of the rest of her thesis doesn't really hold. After all -- Solnit repeatedly makes this distinction -- New Orleans wasn't a "disaster" it was a "catastrophe" and it overwhelmed any possibility for a groundswell of communitarian mutual aid.
Her key point is that even in a disaster the majority of people are largely unaffected and the community can (relatively) quickly get back on its feet. But with New Orleans the scale and kind of devastation made that impossible.
Based on the strength of the first three chapter I still recommend A Paradise Built in Hell. I highly recommend the first three chapters and I just as strongly recommend you don't read the final two chapters.
Want to read
July 11, 2020$1.99 Kindle and Kobo sale, July 11, 2020.
September 2, 2021
A book about the end of this world, and the beginning of the next. Reminds me of some anarchist points of view, but I'd say this book is politically palatable for most, which is a strength. A few weaker points, but a five-star concept of a book.
And for more on "Elite Panic," an important concept in this book and what led me to actually pick it up and read it, I highly recommend the Behind the Bastards episode on it.
Anyway, a few notable tidbits:
"The difference between citizens feeding themselves and each other and being given food according to a system involving tickets and outside administrators is the difference between independence and dependence, between mutual aid and charity. The providers and the needy had become two different groups, and there was no joy or solidarity in being handed food by people who required you to prove your right to it first."
"...Everyday life is already a disaster of sorts, one from which actual disaster liberates us... People suffer and die daily, though in ordinary times, they do so privately, separately."
"When the loss is general, one is not cast out by suffering but finds fellowship in it."
The scene of San Diego authorities using evacuation procedures during the 2007 fires to identify, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants.
And an ending note:
"She and her boyfriend went out into the garden, sat on the long grass, and found that the warm, beautiful summer night was 'made more beautiful than ever by the red glow from the East, where the docks were burning.' She fixed the scene in her mind, knowing it was historic, and 'I wasn't frightened any more, it was amazing... The searchlights were beautiful, it's like watching the end of the world as they swoop from one end of the sky to the other."
And for more on "Elite Panic," an important concept in this book and what led me to actually pick it up and read it, I highly recommend the Behind the Bastards episode on it.
Anyway, a few notable tidbits:
"The difference between citizens feeding themselves and each other and being given food according to a system involving tickets and outside administrators is the difference between independence and dependence, between mutual aid and charity. The providers and the needy had become two different groups, and there was no joy or solidarity in being handed food by people who required you to prove your right to it first."
"...Everyday life is already a disaster of sorts, one from which actual disaster liberates us... People suffer and die daily, though in ordinary times, they do so privately, separately."
"When the loss is general, one is not cast out by suffering but finds fellowship in it."
The scene of San Diego authorities using evacuation procedures during the 2007 fires to identify, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants.
And an ending note:
"She and her boyfriend went out into the garden, sat on the long grass, and found that the warm, beautiful summer night was 'made more beautiful than ever by the red glow from the East, where the docks were burning.' She fixed the scene in her mind, knowing it was historic, and 'I wasn't frightened any more, it was amazing... The searchlights were beautiful, it's like watching the end of the world as they swoop from one end of the sky to the other."
February 5, 2022
I'm most familiar with Rebecca Solnit's essay collections, so this was a different reading experience for me. This micro-history focuses on refuting the common assumption that disasters bring out the worst in people, and actually proposes the opposite: that despite what you see on the news, disasters actually allow people's inherent capacity for altruism and collective action to briefly flourish.
This perspective was helpful in reconsidering the start of 2022, where almost no news seems like good news, with all manner of global calamity looming. It occurred to me that this book is an interesting counterpart to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, and Solnit actually addresses that book in one chapter. The difference is Solnit looks at records of people who lived through disasters, while Klein examines patterns of exploitation by wealthy opportunists. I appreciate the conclusions that Solnit puts forward, but it did feel that she would have needed to include more (particularly non-Western) examples to draw broader conclusions.
This perspective was helpful in reconsidering the start of 2022, where almost no news seems like good news, with all manner of global calamity looming. It occurred to me that this book is an interesting counterpart to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, and Solnit actually addresses that book in one chapter. The difference is Solnit looks at records of people who lived through disasters, while Klein examines patterns of exploitation by wealthy opportunists. I appreciate the conclusions that Solnit puts forward, but it did feel that she would have needed to include more (particularly non-Western) examples to draw broader conclusions.
July 2, 2009
This book is pretty incredible, and I would recommend it to anyone. The argument builds from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (and subsequent fire) to Hurricane Katrina, through many stops in between, showing how civilized society is a very thin veneer beneath which lies... community and familial love. Looting and panic and random hysterical violence is largely a hyperbole of the very frightened elite. So the touchpoint, throughout, is that the real disaster is a society which keeps people apart, fostering a feeling of helplessness and fear. Emergencies and breakdowns allow a chance for real connection.
Read
February 10, 2019an essential book to read before you make up your mind about human nature. we are not nasty, mean, and brutish. we are fundamentally generous and we put together working social groups no matter where you plant a passel of us.
February 9, 2021
Exploring the actions and reactions of people caught up in disaster from 1906's San Francisco earthquake to 2005's Hurricane Katrina, Solnit argues that rather than follow the media and disaster movie narrative of dissolving into panic, looting and indiscriminate violence, the majority of those affected by such events tend to come together in solidarity, helping each other out and forging communities built on cooperation and altruism. She examines five cases in detail, including in addition to the aforementioned the 1917 explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and 9/11, and looks also at how prejudices and false beliefs about the likely reactions of civilians in such situations can trigger brutal, deeply harmful responses from those in charge believing they must "restore order" at the cost of causing further injury and death to people they are meant to help and protect. An interesting read, though I would have liked to see her include some cases from elsewhere in the world (she does give reasons for why she doesn't, but still - if you're going to argue that this coming together effect is intrinsic human nature across cultures, you ought to involve a few more cultures) and occasionally found her upbeat, optimistic beliefs just a tad bit naive.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 643 reviews