
The Beginning Comes After the End
by Rebecca Solnit
Published 2026 by Haymarket Books
176 pages
About this book:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER INDEPENDENT PRESS TOP 40 BESTSELLER Rebecca Solnit offers a thrilling account of the sheer breadth and scale of social, political, scientific, and cultural change over the past three quarters of a century. In this sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark, Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility; it is an inevitability. The changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value. But because the transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized. While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world.
Recommended in:
- The Very Good and Very Bad News on Climate (Jul 10, 2026) with Bill McKibben
Recommended with:

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Here Comes the Sun - A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization
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The Glorians
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The Carbon Wave - A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet
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Brought to You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy
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End Times Fascism - And the Fight for the Living World
Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor