Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Politics & government

THE QUIET BEFORE

Gal Beckerman

On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

Gal's new book draws on his marvelous narrative skills to explore a question that feels highly relevant in these tumultuous times: How are radical ideas born?

Gal begins with a small group of amateur astronomers in 17th century France, whose letter-writing would overturn millennia of church doctrine. He then takes us on a sweeping tour of social change. We go to Manchester, England in the 1830s to see how petitions helped working-class men come together to secure the right to vote; to Ghana a hundred years later, where a conversation developed between a newspaper advice columnist and her readers over the best way to resist colonial rule; to Washington, DC in the 90s where a new literary form zines -- allowed a group of young women to define the terms of third-wave feminism. There are other stories too, but each one is utterly immersive and beautifully rendered -- you feel like you are stepping into a world -- and each contains a lesson for incubating a radical idea, and helping it take root.

But then the book takes a fascinating turn.

Several years ago, Gal started looking at social media, which was being used by all kinds of social movements, from the Arab Spring to Occupy to Black Lives Matter. What he realized was that Facebook and Twitter were failing these groups -- and by extension, all of us. They were very good at broadcasting slogans or telling people the location of protests. But they were not creating lasting change. They were missing the crucial ingredients Gal had identified in the movements of the past. They were loud when they needed to be quiet. They were non-hierarchical and unfocused, instead of organized and patient. They were not creating spaces to develop and protect and nurture world-changing ideas. Obama himself recognized this when he said to activists a few years ago: "You can't just keep yelling."

Some groups understood this, of course, and took to the Dark Web or private networks. Gal shows how far-right extremists used the platform Discord for over a year to organize the rally in Charlottesville. (This is probably a good time to remind you that not all radical ideas are good ideas.) But he ends with the incredibly inspiring story of a group of epidemiologists who came together when the pandemic struck last year. They saw that the Trump administration was in denial and realized that they had to share data with a small, loyal set of colleagues - and develop their own plan for saving Americans' lives. So they used encrypted chat apps, which Gal was miraculously given access to. The messages are astonishing and news-making.

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.

Available products
Book Published 2022-02-15 by Crown

Comments

In this penetrating feat of the intellect, Gal Beckerman explains the long and complicated relationship between the envisioning of new principles and the realization of such principles in the form of social transformation. Deploying a stunningly diverse set of narratives, he builds up evidence that the process is long and slow and nuanced. We tend to vest our admiration for - or dismay about - the work of activists who turn ideas into actions, but in fact, it is those who conceive those ideas and those who gradually disseminate them who may be the greatest heroes. This book should be read by anyone interested in thinking.

What a beautiful and humane book. The Quiet Before is a tour de force page-turner of an intellectual adventure story, one that hopscotches from medieval Provence to pre-fascist Florence to 21st-century Charlottesville, with stops in Moscow, Cairo and many other exquisitely rendered settings in between. Beckerman is an infectious guide, wearing his learning lightly as he reveals some of the places and personalities that have incubated the 'common world' we now cohabit.

How does true social change occur? In this brilliant book filled with insightful analysis and colorful storytelling, Gal Beckerman shows that new ideas need to incubate through thoughtful discussions in order to create sustained movements. Today's social media hothouses, unfortunately, tend to produce flash mobs that flame out. We need to regain intimate forms of communication if we want to nurture real transformation. Rarely does a book give you a new way of looking at social change. This one does.

British / ANZ: Transworld ; Catalan: Laertes; Chinese (compl.): Walkers Cultural Enterprises ; Dutch: Unieboek / Het Spectrum ; Romanian: Publica ; Spanish: Critica / Planeta Group

The Quiet Before is that rare book: arresting in its premise, supported by historical examples, and relevant to right now. Beckerman takes a close look at the media that led to the 'changed minds' of past revolutions, then challenges us to approach today's media with new eyes. How can we make it serve our urgent human purposes - among these the rethinking of human equality and the possibility of democracy? I loved it.

Both deep and urgent, Beckerman revisits past revolutions from the perspective of the communication tools that enabled them, providing insight into how we can better navigate the promise and peril of the technologies shaping our current moment.

From intimate conversations grow world-shaking movements, argues this probing intellectual history... Beckerman unearths fascinating lore about these ideological hothouses, from the Futurists' love triangles in early 20th-century Italy to the alt-right's public-messaging strategies. The result is a timely and stimulating take on how the fringe infiltrates the mainstream.

How do new ideas take root and grow? Often, not in the blazing sunshine of mass exposure, argues Beckerman, but in the shadows of a semi-private space... The Quiet Before can't offer any fail-safe recipe for slow-cooked innovation. It can help readers to imagine - and join - a better kind of conversation in the kitchen of ideas.

All the myriad events fashioned by humans to create the world's history - be they wars or revolutions, artistic movements or responses to pandemics - have their points-of-origin in discussions, in discourses, in polemics, in simple statements nailed to church doors, in furtive comments uttered in basement bars, or in realizations made while waiting for traffic lights to change. In this wonderfully original and captivating book Gal Beckerman reminds us that while natural events are so often announced with an unanticipated bang, human-made happenstances can more commonly trace their beginnings to little more than a cascade of gentle whispers.

Elegantly argued and exuberantly narrated . . . Brilliant.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come, but how do ideas ever get to the point where their time has come? Ideas have to be conceived, improved, and accepted by people, and we know little about how this happens. The Quiet Before is a fascinating and important exploration of how ideas that change the world incubate and spread.

History doesn't just unfold; it tumbles and churns and surprises us as it emerges. With beautifully nimble prose and a keen eye, Gal Beckerman tracks the unexpected way society changes and reshapes itself via communication. The moment for this book is now - as we navigate this new era of virtual interactions and wonder how we got here and where we're headed.

You say you want a revolution? Gal Beckerman has some advice. In this bravura work of scholarship and reporting, featuring amazing individuals and dramatic events from 17th-century France to Rome, Moscow, Cairo, and contemporary Minneapolis, he shows us, up close, how an idea or a grievance can turn into a movement, and why some movements succeed and so many fail. His book is sobering, but it will give you hope. And it will change the way you think about change.

The Quiet Before is a remarkable, entirely engrossing account of the subterranean routes by which historical change takes place, from the adoption of universal (male) suffrage to #MeToo, and an examination of the limitations of social media in achieving real social transformation. Gal Beckerman writes with lucidity and grace, folding a formidable amount of research and original reflection into a compulsively readable narrative. This is a riveting and timely book, one that should provoke heated Zoom conversations nation-wide.