This book is phenomenal ... It's about as good as journalism gets ...The highest praise I can give If We Burn is to say that it would be criminally negligent not to read it if you'd like to change the world. - ROB DELANEY
Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future. - MERVE EMRE
A stunning history of now. - GREG GRANDIN
From 2010 to 2020, more people took part in protests than at any other point in human history. Why has success been so elusive?
From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine's Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, the second decade of the twenty-first century was propelled by explosive mass demonstrations. But few people got what they wanted. In too many cases, the protests led to the opposite of what they asked for.
If We Burn is a stirring work of global history built around that strange but fundamental paradox. Acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins interviewed hundreds of people around the world, and weaves their insights and recollections into a fast-paced, gripping narrative. We follow his own troubling experiences in Brazil, where a protest movement ignited by leftists and anarchists led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon.
In the mass protest decade, humanity demonstrated a deep desire for change, and brave individuals started something that has been left unfinished. In this ground-breaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors offer urgent lessons for those who wish to understand geopolitics today, and create a better world tomorrow.
"In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Bevins introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose small acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future-one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution."
-MERVE EMRE, critic for the New Yorker
"This is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now."
-GREG GRANDIN, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth
"Ambitious, diligently researched, and provocative, If We Burn will transform the way you think. Bevins' detailed, comparative reporting offers a riveting look at the contradictions, unexpected consequences, and lessons of mass protests."
-ALEXA HAGERTY, author of Still Life with Bones
"This book is phenomenal. A thrilling, blow by blow (and often live on-the-ground) analysis of how the various people-led movements and revolutions over the last decade succeeded or failed. Incalculably useful to anyone who'd like to make substantive, enduring changes to their town, country or even the world. I cannot think of a book that so soberly and forensically analysed the very recent past. If We Burn is about as good as journalism gets."
-ROB DELANEY, author of A Heart That Works
