The Quiet Before

In my writing, I have gravitated toward social history, which can be loosely defined as history “from the bottom up.” This book appealed to me because the author doesn’t frame radical ideas and revolutions as top-down upheavals but rather as the result of simmering tensions that coalesce in cataclysms.

Beckerman describes big changes that have been, and continue to be, incubated beneath the radar until they explode into really big deals. Topics include the French Revolution, the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, and the fascist attack in my hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

How do movements begin? Beckerman looks to history, drawing lessons from a dozen social movements.

In particular, he explores the communications tools (petitions, zines, private chat rooms) that movements have used over the centuries to organize their thinking and plan their actions. Traveling from Manchester to Moscow to Minneapolis, the reader is reminded that our work now is part of a chain of history.

We are not the first, nor will we be the last. But we can learn from the past even as we confront an uncertain future.