The quiet before : on the unexpected origins of radical ideas

Beckerman, Gal2023

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Summary

We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fuelling 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 over how to get there. This 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 takes us back to the 17th century, to the correspondence that jumpstarted the scientific revolution, and then forward through time to examine the engines of social change: the petitions that secured the right to vote in 1830s Britain, the zines that first gave voice to women's rage in the early 1990s, even the encrypted apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic.