Advanced Search Request a Book

ORDERS

Readings Orders 0

DEMANDS

Readings Demands 0

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins Of Radical Ideas
[Hardback - 2022]
gal beckerman
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £20
Our Price: Rs.2845 Rs.2560
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.285
Category: History
Sub-category: World History
Publisher: Bantam Uk | ISBN: 9781787636200 | Pages: 352
Shipping Weight: .575 | Dimensions: null
Notify

More Buying Options

Paperback Rs.1975

Description

The Quiet Before is a fascinating and important exploration of how ideas that change the world incubate and spread. Steven Pinker

Filled with insightful analysis and colourful storytelling... Rarely does a book give you a new way of looking at social change. This one does. Walter Isaacson

Why do some radical ideas make history while others founder?

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 extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that they might soon go extinct.

The Quiet Before is a grand panorama, stretching from the seventeenth century correspondence that jumpstarted the scientific revolution to the groundswell of the Chartists, the liberation movement on the Gold Coast and the underground network of samizdat publications in Soviet Russia - even the encrypted apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration. Beckerman shows that defining social movements-from decolonization to feminism-thrive when they are given the time and space to gestate.

Now, Facebook and Twitter are replacing these productive, private spaces with monolithic platforms that are very public and endlessly networked. Why did the Arab Spring fall apart and 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.

About the Author

Gal Beckerman is a writer and editor at The New York Times Book Review and a regular contributor to the New Republic and the Wall Street Journal. He has a PhD in media studies from Columbia University and is the author of the award-winning When They Come for Us, We ll Be Gone, which was named a best book of the year by the New Yorker and the Washington Post. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.

Bestsellers in History

View All
Islam: A Short History
[Paperback - 2002]
karen armstrong
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2145 Rs.1930
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.215
The Campaigns Of Alexander
[Paperback - 1971]
arrian
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £12.99
Our Price: Rs.2345 Rs.2110
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.235
White Mughals: Love & Betrayal In Eighteenth Century India
[Paperback - 2004]
william dalrymple
In Stock
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: Rs.3795 Rs.3415
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.380
Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind
[Paperback - 2015]
yuval noah harari
In Stock
List Price: £12.99
Our Price: Rs.2995 Rs.2695
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.300
The Histories (Translation)
[Paperback - 2003]
herodotus
Out of Stock
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $14
Our Price: Rs.2995 Rs.2695
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.300
21 Lessons For The 21st Century
[Paperback - 2019]
yuval noah harari
In Stock
List Price: £12.99
Our Price: Rs.2895 Rs.2605
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.290
World Order: Reflections On The Character Of Nations And The Course Of History
[Paperback - 2015]
henry kissinger
In Stock
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: Rs.2495 Rs.2245
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.250
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
[Paperback - 2023]
peter frankopan
In Stock
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: Rs.4795 Rs.4315
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.480
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
[Hardback - 2023]
peter frankopan
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £30
Our Price: Rs.7145 Rs.6073
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.1072
Inglorious Empire: What The British Did To India
[Paperback - 2017]
shashi tharoor
In Stock
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: Rs.2595 Rs.2335
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.260