The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE - An "elegantly argued and exuberantly narrated" (The New York Times Book Review) look at the building of social movements--from the 1600s to the present--and how current technology is undermining them

"A bravura work of scholarship and reporting, featuring amazing individuals and dramatic events from seventeenth-century France to Rome, Moscow, Cairo, and contemporary Minneapolis."--Louis Menand, author of The Free World

We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fueling them have traditionally been conceived in much quieter spaces, in the small, secluded corners where a vanguard can whisper among themselves, imagine alternate realities, and deliberate about how to achieve their goals. This extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that--in a world dominated by social media--they might soon go extinct.

Gal Beckerman, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, takes us back to the seventeenth century, to the correspondence that jump-started the scientific revolution, and then forward through time to examine engines of social change: the petitions that secured the right to vote in 1830s Britain, the zines that gave voice to women's rage in the early 1990s, and even the messaging apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration. In each case, Beckerman shows that our most defining social movements--from decolonization to feminism--were formed in quiet, closed networks that allowed a small group to incubate their ideas before broadcasting them widely.

But Facebook and Twitter are replacing these productive, private spaces, to the detriment of activists around the world. Why did the Arab Spring fall apart? Why did Occupy Wall Street never gain traction? Has Black Lives Matter lived up to its full potential? Beckerman reveals what this new social media ecosystem lacks--everything from patience to focus--and offers a recipe for growing radical ideas again.

Lyrical and profound, The Quiet Before looks to the past to help us imagine a different future.

Author: Gal Beckerman
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Published: 02/15/2022
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.22lbs
Size: 9.55h x 6.48w x 1.26d
ISBN: 9781524759186


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2021 pg. 18
Publishers Weekly 12/13/2021
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2022

About the Author
Gal Beckerman is a writer and editor at The New York Times Book Review and the author of When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone, which won the National Jewish Book Award and Sami Rohr Prize and was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post. He has a PhD in media studies from Columbia University and writes for many publications, including The New Republic and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.