-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Notes on a World of Change
by Rebecca Solnit
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.
"A convincing vision of a brighter future." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[R]emarkably lucid and fluent...Confirming that we're in the midst of a massive backlash as the right attempts to undo everything from the promise of renewable energy to efforts at achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion, Solnit argues that this reaction is due to already profound and ultimately unstoppable societal transformations...precise, compelling, and deeply clarifying." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Explaining that change is "invisible" over longer stretches of time, once the "baseline" has been forgotten, the author recaps the significant social advancements of the past several decades, including civil rights, feminism, LGBTQ+ equality, and the environmental movement." ―Publishers Weekly
This information about The Beginning Comes After the End was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than 25 books, including Orwell's Roses, Hope in the Dark, Men Explain Things to Me, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A longtime climate and human rights activist, she serves on the boards of Oil Change International and Third Act.
If you liked The Beginning Comes After the End, try these:
by Michelle de Kretser
Published 2026
A new novel of startling intelligence from prizewinning Australian author Michelle de Kretser, following a writer looking back on her young adulthood and grappling with what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.
by Leah Sottile
Published 2025
An investigation of the New Age movement in America that aims to understand its appeal to women and the self-proclaimed prophetesses, like Love Has Won's Amy Carlson, who've created kingdoms for themselves within it.
by Maame Blue
Published 2024
An internationally award-winning writer makes her triumphant American debut in this emotionally powerful story—a potent blend of Queenie and The Vanishing Half—about a woman's journey to uncover a foundational family secret from the childhood she does not remember.
You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
