Wonder Cabinet Rebecca Solnit: Hope After the End
Feb 14, 2026
Rebecca Solnit, writer and activist known for books on feminism and environmentalism, reflects on hope amid systemic crisis. She discusses cultural shifts that precede political change. She explores wonder as a moral force, Indigenous and scientific interconnection, renewable energy advances, and personal roots in punk and activism.
38:10
Land-Back Ceremony On A Windy Hill
- Solnit opens the book at a land-back ceremony on a windy California hill and describes reconnection with Native presence.
- She notes tribes once declared 'extinct' are now leading visions for sustainable futures.
Why Despair Misreads The Moment
- Solnit rejects despair and frames the right-wing backlash as resisting gains in rights and culture.
- She says laws can be reversed faster than beliefs, so underlying cultural shifts sustain progress.
Practice Pragmatic Patience
- Keep patient and recognize incremental change rather than demanding immediate, total victories after each action.
- Cultivate pragmatic, embodied hope that sustains sustained political and cultural work.
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Intro
00:00 • 4min
Solnit's California hill and land-back ceremony
03:52 • 2min
Why hope resists despair
05:40 • 2min
Culture shapes politics over time
07:51 • 2min
The tortoise perspective on progress
09:45 • 3min
The renewable energy revolution
12:24 • 2min
Wonder as moral and political force
14:21 • 2min
Darkness, mystery, and generative unknowns
16:41 • 5min
Disasters reveal human solidarity
21:51 • 3min
A new interconnected paradigm
24:43 • 14sec
Ad break
24:57 • 45sec
Science aligns with Indigenous knowledge
25:42 • 3min
Western capitalism as a detour
28:15 • 2min
Personal formation: punk, books, and activism
30:01 • 4min
Imagining plural futures and Afrofuturism
33:56 • 2min
Items for a modern wonder cabinet
35:37 • 2min
Outro
37:19 • 47sec
#28183
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
The Beginning Comes After the End
Notes on a World of Change
Rebecca Solnit
#8417
• Mentioned in 6 episodes
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Rebecca Solnit
A Field Guide for Getting Lost is a collection of essays by Rebecca Solnit that explores the experience of getting lost, both literally and metaphorically.
#1445
• Mentioned in 28 episodes
A paradise built in hell
the extraordinary communities and strange joys that arise in disasters
Emily Beresford
Rebecca Solnit
David Muñoz Mateos
In 'A Paradise Built in Hell', Rebecca Solnit examines how people respond to disasters and crises, often forming strong, resilient communities.
The book delves into the human capacity for cooperation, altruism, and mutual aid during times of catastrophe, challenging the common narrative that disasters bring out the worst in people.
Solnit draws on historical examples such as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and Hurricane Katrina to illustrate these phenomena.
#6482
• Mentioned in 8 episodes
Prison Notebooks
Antonio Gramsci
Joseph Buttigieg
#10660
• Mentioned in 5 episodes
Orwell's Roses
Rebecca Solnit
Alexandre Gombau Arnau
In 'Orwell's Roses', Rebecca Solnit provides an insightful literary biography of George Orwell, focusing on his lesser-known love for gardening and nature.
The book connects Orwell's political writing with his personal life, highlighting his cultivation of rose bushes at his English countryside cottage.
Solnit also explores broader themes such as the labor movement's 'bread and roses' slogan, the symbolism of roses, and the intersection of aesthetics and ethics.
The book is a blend of memoir, historical analysis, and literary criticism, offering a fresh and hopeful perspective on Orwell's life and work.
#2723
• Mentioned in 17 episodes
Hope in the Dark
Laura Henry
Unfortunately, detailed descriptions of the book's content by Laura Henry are not provided in the available sources.
It is distinct from the more well-known book 'Hope in the Dark' by Rebecca Solnit.
#837
• Mentioned in 42 episodes
Utopia
Sir Thomas More
Written in 1516, 'Utopia' by Sir Thomas More is a seminal work of fiction that presents an ideal society on a fictional island.
The book is divided into two parts: the first critiques the social and economic issues of early 16th-century England, while the second introduces the Utopian society as a potential solution.
Utopia is characterized by communal property, no class distinctions or poverty, little crime, religious freedom, and a strict egalitarian system.
More uses this imaginary society to highlight the flaws of European politics and society of his time, advocating for a more just and equal world.
The work is notable for its influence on later socialist and communist thought and continues to be a subject of discussion in political theory and philosophy.
#938
• Mentioned in 39 episodes
Awe
The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
Dacher Keltner
In 'Awe', Dacher Keltner presents a sweeping investigation and deeply personal inquiry into the elusive feeling of awe.
The book reveals new research alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within Keltner's own life.
It shows how awe transforms thoughts of self, one’s relationship to the world, and physical reactions to it.
Keltner also explores how awe has propelled human evolution, is beneficial to mental and physical health, and can heal grief, build communal bonds, and humble us by making us feel part of something larger than ourselves.
#6718
• Mentioned in 7 episodes
Men Explain Things to Me
Rebecca Solnit
This book, published in 2014, features seven essays that delve into the experiences of women being silenced, ignored, and debased.
The title essay, 'Men Explain Things to Me,' recounts Solnit's personal experience at a dinner party where a man condescendingly explains her own book to her.
The collection also includes essays like '#YesAllWomen' and 'Cassandra Syndrome,' addressing broader issues such as violence against women, misogyny, and the global implications of patriarchal societies.
The book is illustrated by visual and performance artist Ana Teresa Fernández and combines humor, personal anecdotes, and statistical facts to highlight the pervasive nature of gender inequality.
How do you deal with the emotional toll of living in a time of dissolution? Social scientists use the term "polycrisis" to describe the kind of cascading, overlapping failures that can lead to systemic collapse, and it’s hard not to see the symptoms of a dying world order in events unfolding around us. But maybe what we’re witnessing is actually grounds for hope. In a forthcoming book "The Beginning Comes After the End," writer and activist Rebecca Solnit makes the case that something is dying, all right — because something better is being born. A rising worldview that embraces antiracism, feminism, environmental thinking, Indigenous and non-Western ideas, and a vision of a more interconnected, compassionate world.
Solnit is an engaged writer and intellectual in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, Susan Sontag and George Orwell. Her new book picks up where her earlier bestseller “Hope in the Dark” left off — with an argument against despair and historical amnesia. In this conversation, we explore the extraordinary scale of progressive social, political, scientific and cultural change over the past century, the roots of Solnit’s stance of “pragmatic, embodied hope,” her thoughts on “moral wonder, “ and her years in San Francisco’s underground punk rock scene. She also tells us what she’d put in our own wonder cabinet: an AIDS Memorial Quilt square sewn by Rosa Parks.
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- To The Best Of Our Knowledge — Tending a wartime garden: what Orwell’s fascination with roses tells us about the human need for beauty
- Rebecca Solnit’s newsletter
- Pre-order “The Beginning Comes After the End," due out March 3, 2026.
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00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:00 A Land Back Ceremony
00:08:05 Progress in Disguise
00:18:35 Hope and Interconnection
00:29:45 Defiant Hope
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Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson.
Find out more about the show at wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.