3.5
The Revolution Where You Live
ByPublisher Description
Discover the Real Revolution Unfolding across America
America faces huge challenges'Äîclimate change, social injustice, racist violence, economic insecurity. Journalist Sarah van Gelder suspected that there were solutions, and she went looking for them, not in the centers of power, where people are richly rewarded for their allegiance to the status quo, but off the beaten track, in rural communities, small towns, and neglected urban neighborhoods.
She bought a used pickup truck and camper and set off on a 12,000-mile journey through eighteen states, dozens of cities and towns, and five Indian reservations. From the ranches of Montana to the coalfields of Kentucky to the urban cores of Chicago and Detroit, van Gelder discovered people and communities who are remaking America from the ground up. Join her as she meets the quirky and the committed, the local heroes and the healers who, under the mass media's radar, are getting stuff done. The common thread running through their work was best summed up by a phrase she saw on a mural in Newark: 'ÄúWe the People LOVE This Place.'Äù That connection we each have to our physical and ecological place, and to our human community, is where we find our power and our best hopes for a new America.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Revolution Where You Live Reviews
3.5
“3.5 stars. I don't know why I didn't love this, and I kept asking myself that question the entire time I was reading this. Part of it might be emotional - this book was written before the election of 45, when the things Van Gelder is exploring felt infinitely more possible than they do now. So part of my discomfort may just be frustration - fear that we don't have the luxury to engage in the kinds of things she discusses because we're going to be too busy protecting bodies from harm for the next 4 years. Thwarted hope is a powerful emotion.
The other thing that I didn't love is - the topics in this book are great, but their treatment is shallow. No one story occupies very many pages, because Van Gelder is covering a LOT of ground, literally and figuratively. I generally think I'm fine with "survey" course level books, but I felt frustrated with it here - again, my feeling of "this seems impossible" overwhelming my ability to take the movements for what they are. But it's also that we're going so many places to discuss so many issues that we don't spend time with any of the people for very long - and this makes the whole thing blur a bit.
I should also note that there is kind of a shitty line in the very beginning that definitely turned me off. "We learn to leave family or community to chase down a better job, to leave our children in sterile child-care centers because we have to earn a few dollars working a low-wage job." This just felt like an unnecessary swipe at working moms - sterile childcare centers? WTF. I don't think she meant to come off like she did, but she doesn't follow this statement up with what a better childcare situation looks like according to her, so it's hard to say.
This may have been a "wrong book at the wrong time" kind of situation. It's got some great, big ideas and that's inspiring. The big takeaway - that we can affect the most useful change right where we are, wherever we live - is a great message. I think I just wanted more details, a little deeper treatment for each place.”
“In this game of captitism, removal of people is for short term gain. The most effective thing is to always keep people in survival mode. - Qoute from the book.”
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