“The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.”

Roy further expands on the role of NGOs, corporate funding, and the flow of international capital in this short but highly informative collection of essays. The collection focuses mainly on disproportionate wealth in India, and how the wealthy manipulate the government, manipulate the media, manipulate the message, and so on. In addition, there are several case studies focusing on American occupation in Afghanistan and tying that in with the rise of the global market. Very interesting and I can’t wait to find out more information.

great book, extremely well-researched and thorough. my only complaint is the chapters are very disjointed. there’s no connection between the chapters, but maybe that’s because the chapters are meant to also serve as stand-alone essays. regardless, it’s really informative and well done.

really masterful storytelling from Berendt. I loved “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil;” this book was quite different from that, but equally enthralling and well written. also provided a great history of Venice and Venice’s art scene. highly recommend.

what an atrocious book. I would give it zero stars if I could. I had high hopes after reading the first essay, but it careened downhill from that point. I'm not going to go into too much detail about why it's bad, simply because I do not want to flip through the pages I marked and relive the mediocrity.
some low-points:
-problematic language surrounding survivors of sexual violence
-disparaging remarks about women who wear burkas/religious coverings
-at one point she said "Republic of Menistan" and honestly I don't even know what to make of that, I think it was trying to be comedic but I don't understand what she meant by that and it seems derogatory in some way.
-extremely self-serving, all throughout the book, but in particular the essay "Woolf's Darkness" which served as a self-promotion for her other works and her interactions with famous writers and artists
-lacked any footnotes or citations. I understand Solnit is not a feminist theorist, and I do not believe that you have to be an expert to make a contribution, but if it's not your field, you need to cite to people who have already done this work and made the points you are making. In speaking about her own moments of erasure by male academics and acquaintances, Solnit often erases the work of prominent theorists and authors.
-the final, and in my opinion, the worst part of this collection of essays was the whitewashing of feminism. no mention was made of the nuanced experiences of women of color, or of how mainstream feminism historically, and often currently, ignores women of color and/or disparages their experiences. Solnit put on her rose colored glasses to talk about modern feminism and in the process, ignored some major issues in the movement today and gave too much credit to the historical feminist movement, which maybe had some great moments, but for the most part was exclusionary and not all-encompassing
That's the main issue with this collection, I think--Solnit believes that feminism is "one size fits all" and that "women" is a homogeneous category where advances for one means advances for all. Don't read this book, there are better surveys of feminism out there.

I finished this book last week and I've been waiting to review so I can hopefully find the right words to describe just how incredible this book is.

I think I picked this book up when I most needed it. Reading this book felt like talking to a trusted friend. Chanel is an exceptional writer; her words are vivid and deliberate. She does an exceptional job describing every aspect of being a survivor. One of my favorite parts of the book is Chanel's jar metaphor:

"At the time, it was very simple; I put the memory of that morning inside a large jar. I took this jar and carried it down, down, down, flights and flights of stairs, placing it inside a cabinet, locking it away, and walking briskly up the stairs to continue with the life I had built, the one that had nothing to do with him, or what he could ever do to me. The jar was gone."

"Every time I thought of that morning, another jar was born. Now jars filled every inch of my mind. I had nowhere to put them. They cluttered the stairwells, could not be contained in cabinets. I was full of those sealed jars, no room to sit or walk or breathe."

More than anything I've ever read, this for me encapsulated what it means to be a survivor. Chanel, thank you so much for writing this book and for sharing your story. I am deeply grateful to have had your words as a companion. Thank you.

"I lifted the description "a bewildering array of stars" once from a far better writer--I can't remember who now, only that I stole it--and that expression came to mind as I stared up at an awe-inspiring sky over the Sahara, the bright, penetrating lights, the quick drop of comets, a cold moon, which made the rippling patterns of sand look like a frozen sea. The universe was large all right, but no larger, it appeared, than the whole world ahead of me."

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”

“What are you going to do for him? Reduce his sentence from 500 to 400 years?” I asked wryly. People in other parts of the free world like Europe have problems understanding the draconian punishments in the US. Mauritania is not a country of law, so we don’t have a problem understanding whatever the government does: even so, the Mauritanian legal code, when it is followed, is much more humane than the American. Why sentence someone to 300 years when he is not going to live that long?” -Mohamedou Ould Slahi

“Censorship has been integral to the United States’ post-9/11 detention operations from the start. It has been purposeful, not once but twice: first, to open a space for the abuse of prisoners, and then to conceal that those abuses happened. In Mohamedou’s case, those abuses include enforced disappearance; arbitrary and incommunicado detention; cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; and torture. We know thanks to a documentary record that was also, for years, rigorously suppressed.”
-Larry Siems

"Board my body up. I'm not for loving."

Haunting and tragic. The author's writing style makes me feel like I've lived her life alongside her; it pulled me in and changed me. It's a challenging and demanding read, but worth it.