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.
