If We Burn - BookWyrm

Hardcover, 368 pages

English language

Published Oct. 2, 2023 by PublicAffairs.

ISBN:: 978-1-5417-8897-8

(1 review)

The story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world — and what comes next

From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. Over four years, acclaimed journalist and author of The Jakarta Method Vincent Bevins carried out hundreds of interviews around the world. The result is a stirring work of history built around one question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for?

From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine's Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, If We Burn renders street movements and their consequences in gripping detail. Bevins draws on his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched …

The story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world — and what comes next

From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. Over four years, acclaimed journalist and author of The Jakarta Method Vincent Bevins carried out hundreds of interviews around the world. The result is a stirring work of history built around one question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for?

From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine's Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, If We Burn renders street movements and their consequences in gripping detail. Bevins draws on his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon.

Careful investigation reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change has been gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, and reflect on what they wish they had done differently, offering urgent lessons for the future.

3 editions

luxon reviewed If We Burn by Vincent Bevins

Read if you've helped with mass protests

4 stars

This was a great book! On a large scale, it made me appreciate that the 2010s were a decade with uniquely many protests, that these protests all developed in reference to one another, that they converged on a style of protest that comes with predictable benefits and weaknesses, and that all in all, most of the protests failed, often leading to something even worse than what was protested against in the first place. And that we can and should learn from these failures!

On smaller scale, it drove home that a protest without a plan will always be co-opted because there can be no political vacuum, and the most organized, not-discredited group around in chaos will end up taking power or pushing through the reforms they like. In a direct conflict, and that’s what a protest becomes if it’s at all successful, the more hierarchical, disciplined, and authoritarian group will …

This was a great book! On a large scale, it made me appreciate that the 2010s were a decade with uniquely many protests, that these protests all developed in reference to one another, that they converged on a style of protest that comes with predictable benefits and weaknesses, and that all in all, most of the protests failed, often leading to something even worse than what was protested against in the first place. And that we can and should learn from these failures!

On smaller scale, it drove home that a protest without a plan will always be co-opted because there can be no political vacuum, and the most organized, not-discredited group around in chaos will end up taking power or pushing through the reforms they like. In a direct conflict, and that’s what a protest becomes if it’s at all successful, the more hierarchical, disciplined, and authoritarian group will tend to win, and that’s usually the state or the elites. You need a plan.

I think this book is worth reading for anyone who was involved in a large grassroots protests in the last decade and is curious about what the fuck happened.