false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167920015m/28056.jpg 28056 2 Rebecca Solnit has made a vocation out of journeying into difficult territory and reporting back, as an environmentalist, antiglobalization activist, and public intellectual. <i>Storming the Gates of Paradise</i>, an anthology of her essential essays from the past ten years, takes the reader from the Pyrenees to the U.S.-Mexican border, from San Francisco to London, from open sky to the deepest mines, and from the antislavery struggles of two hundred years ago to today's street protests. The nearly forty essays collected here comprise a unique guidebook to the American landscape after the millennium--not just the deserts, skies, gardens, and wilderness areas that have long made up Solnit's subject matter, but the social landscape of democracy and repression, of borders, ruins, and protests. She ventures into territories as dark as prison and as sublime as a broad vista, revealing beauty in the harshest landscape and political struggle in the most apparently serene view. Her introduction sets the tone and the book's overarching themes as she describes Thoreau, leaving the jail cell where he had been confined for refusing to pay war taxes and proceeding directly to his favorite huckleberry patch. In this way she links pleasure to politics, brilliantly demonstrating that the path to paradise has often run through prison.<br>These startling insights on current affairs, politics, culture, and history, always expressed in Solnit's pellucid and graceful prose, constantly revise our views of the otherwise ordinary and familiar. Illustrated throughout, <i>Storming the Gates of Paradise</i> represents recent developments in Solnit's thinking and offers the reader a panoramic world view enriched by her characteristically provocative, inspiring, and hopeful observations.<br> 28647 2007 Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics total:58|5:15|4:33|3:9|2:1|1:0| 58 236 157 14 4 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 22:48:47 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 15 07:42:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jul 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 12:33:04 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 03 20:01:18 -0700 2008 a field guide to getting lost, which i also read recently. but when she's got a good idea, she follows through with it in surpri...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Feb 19 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 22 11:28:01 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 19 14:46:07 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Nov 25 06:14:21 -0800 2007 Wed Sep 05 09:57:37 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 13:44:51 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 16:20:40 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 16:20:56 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Nov 22 12:29:18 -0800 2007 Thu Nov 22 12:36:41 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Apr 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 04:27:02 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 11 06:33:57 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Apr 15 19:04:07 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 15 19:07:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Oct 14 12:27:37 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 12:30:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Sep 17 18:24:51 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 17 18:32:08 -0700 2007 http://againstthegrain.org/audio6.06.07....]]> 0 0 false false Sat Aug 30 06:54:48 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 30 06:55:01 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 02 18:00:24 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 03 23:33:56 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sat Feb 16 16:25:41 -0800 2008 Tue Aug 07 13:35:22 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 24 15:46:36 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Wed Nov 19 13:56:27 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 13:59:57 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sun Nov 22 19:22:47 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 22 19:22:47 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Nov 21 16:47:18 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 21 16:47:18 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Nov 20 04:33:31 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 20 04:33:31 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Nov 14 20:41:14 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 14 20:41:14 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Nov 13 17:37:36 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 17:37:36 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sun Nov 22 10:56:33 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 10:39:42 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 10:39:44 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=28056