If We Burn - by Vincent Bevins

About the Book

"According to a recent report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the number of mass protests has increased each year by over ten per cent. But we are not living in a world that is more just and democratic as a result. In If We Burn, acclaimed journalist and author of The Jakarta Method, Vincent Bevins sets out to answer a pivotal question: How did mass protest backfire in the 2010s? From the Arab Spring, to the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, to the "V for Vinegar" explosion in Brazil, to Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution, to the civil war in Syria, and the student uprisings in Hong Kong in 2019, Bevins aims to understand and present the factors that worked against these democratic protests across the world. In doing so, he shows the ways in which the conventional wisdom in 2010 was wrong but more importantly, what protestors at the time wish they had done differently. Through first person testimony coupled with a fresh analysis of the past, Bevins takes us back to the protests that defined a decade, adding needed clarity and understanding to how such fervent displays of political angst and calls for change were eventually lost. If We Burn is a unique and telling exploration of how a time of upheaval and change was met with vastly different outcomes than the idealism that produced it"--

Book Synopsis

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW REPUBLIC, VERSO, AND THE JOURNAL OF DEMOCRACY AN N+1 MAGAZINE 2023 RECOMMENDED BOOK

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. IF WE BURN is a stirring work of history built around a single, vital 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, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. He draws on four years of research and hundreds of interviews conducted around the world, as well as 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 is gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.

Review Quotes

"A riveting, almost novelistic narrative." --Dazed (UK)

"Much-needed... Bevins argues the 2020s may surpass the 2010s as the decade in which the most protests in human history occur. To avoid a farcical repetition of the tragic 2010s, learning the lessons of defeat is more important than ever before." --New Internationalist (UK)

"Richly reported history... The giddying, immersive experience of saying 'no' to formal mechanisms of representation was at the heart of the movements that Bevins narrates, in an account that traverses São Paulo, Cairo, Hong Kong, Paris and much besides."--New Statesman (UK)

"Vital and timely....Bevins is a great story teller. You can taste the tear gas. You experience these protests, and not simply read about them."--Ecologist (UK)

"If We Burn achieves its very difficult aim--quite like what Naomi Klein's landmark No Logo did as the last millennium closed--of getting a grip over events spread across the globe with solid reportage... This book is essential reading." --The Wire (India)

"[This is] hands down the best account--scholarly or journalistic--of the protest decade (2010-2020) across the world. Absolutely brilliant, sensitive, thoughtful, and so wonderful to think with." --Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and Trade

"A brilliant and masterfully reported dissection of the rise of global popular movements, the self-defeating mistakes they made, the strategies the corporate and ruling elites employed to retain power and crush the aspirations of a frustrated population, as well as an exploration of the tactics popular movements must employ to successfully fight back." --Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

"A must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the profound global transformations since 2008. If We Burn brilliantly interweaves lived experiences and historical context to explain the confusing and effervescent years that changed not only Brazil, but the world as we know it. And the prose is delightful. I started reading and could not stop." --Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, author of The Rise of the Radical Right in the Global South

"A remarkable new history... For a full decade, mobilized by social media and inflamed by the inequities of globalization, the world was on fire with mass protest."--David Wallace-Wells, New York Times Magazine

"Ambitious, diligently researched, and provocative, If We Burn will transform the way you think. Vincent Bevins' detailed, comparative reporting offers a riveting look at the contradictions, unexpected consequences, and lessons of mass protests." --Alexa Hagerty, author of Still Life with Bones

"An essential read for all would-be revolutionaries--and the millions of activists working to transform the global economy." --Anne Pettifor, System Change

"Bevins has spent the last 10 years or so following and interviewing in search of answers. 'The point was not just to notice that the mass protest decade hasn't really worked out, ' he muses toward the end of the book. 'The idea was to understand why.' Fortunately, he comes away from his globe-trotting search with critical lessons for activists both here and abroad."--New Republic

"Bevins honed his skill for unpacking complicated political history in his last book, The Jakarta Method... In If We Burn, he sets the table for each mass uprising in a way that often feels like a conversation with an encyclopedically informed globetrotting friend."--Los Angeles Times

"Bevins is sharp on the way right-wing TV channels and shadily funded free-market think tanks sought to shape the reception of this 'fundamentally illegible eruption of contention'... The lessons that Bevins's defeated protesters offer at the end of If We Burn bear repeating." --London Review of Books

"Bevins provides vital insights into why the exhilarating, hopeful, often awe-inspiring and initially effective mass protest movements of the 2010s, focusing primarily on movements in the Global South, so often sputtered, failed, and fell prey to reaction and counterrevolution. An important and persuasive study." --Verso Books

"Bevins' ambitious history of this time effortlessly glides among a diverse set of countries and regions... weaving together historical context, social theory and the firsthand experiences of sources he interviews. These stories from people who were present on the ground are the heart and soul of the book and a testament to Bevins' skills." --Real Change News

"Bevins's colorful reportage captures the élan of militants... and he's also incisive in his critique... The result is an illuminating postmortem on a decade of false dawns." --Publishers Weekly

"Crucially, the book draws deeply on protestors' own words. If We Burn thereby offers both a postmortem of the last decade of mass protest and a blueprint for the inevitable next. In searching for the missing revolution, Bevins may help others find it after all." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"I was not expecting this, but I think If We Burn is even better than The Jakarta Method."--Benjamin Fogel, editor at Jacobin

"In this remarkably assured and sweeping history of the present, Vincent introduces us to the activists, hackers, punks, martyrs, and the millions of ordinary people whose small acts of bravery spurred the mass protests of the last decade. Bevins's clear-eyed, sympathetic account of the unfulfilled promise of these protests leaves his reader with a bold vision of the future--one in which his book's lessons are used to transform an uprising into a true revolution." --Merve Emre, critic at New Yorker

"Once you have read this incredible new book, you will start seeing its lessons absolutely everywhere, all around you." --Dharna Noor, climate reporter at Guardian

"Outstanding... [Bevins] cares enough about his subjects to do them justice. His memorable descriptions are among the book's chief pleasures. It's hard to forget the 'rowdy and gregarious' Mayara, fan of the all-woman Brazilian punk band Menstruação Anarquika (Anarchic Menstruation), or Bahar, the 'wry and impish scientist' who joined Turkey's uprising." --Current Affairs

"The best book I read this year... If We Burn is a globetrotting journey of historical reportage. Bevins conducted more than 200 interviews in 10 countries. Attentive to local particularities, he diligently retells how each protest developed before zooming out to ponder the implications for the 'mass protest decade' and consider what would be required for such movements to succeed in the future." --Eamon Whalen, Mother Jones

"The critically acclaimed Jakarta Method was a scathing exposé of the central role the C.I.A. played in orchestrating Indonesia's savage 1965 anti-communist pogrom. If We Burn is both more ambitious and more wide-ranging."--New York Times Book Review

"The 2010s ushered in a new dawn of protest. This lucid account of recent political and social history explains why the uprisings failed... A singularly comprehensive and discursive study." --New Zealand Listener

"This book is outstanding." --Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag

"This book is phenomenal. A thrilling, blow by blow (and often live on-the-ground) analysis of how the various people-led movements and revolutions over the last decade succeeded or failed. Incalculably useful to anyone who'd like to make substantive, enduring changes to their town, country or even the world. I cannot think of a book that so soberly and forensically analysed the very recent past. If We Burn is about as good as journalism gets." --Rob Delaney, author of A Heart that Works

"This book tries to solve perhaps the most important puzzle posed by recent history."--Daniel Denvir, n+1 magazine book recommendations

"This is a wondrous work of mystery writing, an effort to solve the riddle: Why has a decade of large-scale rolling revolts produced no revolution, no significant structural reform? I can't think of any journalist other than Bevins who would dare to ask such a question, or be capable of weaving together seemingly discrete global events into a stunning history of now. Have we planted seeds for a better future, or have the gears of change frozen for good? Bevins lets the people he talked to, those on the street, answer." --Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth

"Tremendous."--Ryan Grim, Intercept

"Vincent Bevins emerged as a leading chronicler of US empire in his 2020 book The Jakarta Method, in which he explored the dirty legacy of the Cold War. His new book, If We Burn, is more personal and even more urgent. And somehow, a little hopeful, too." --Jonathan Guyer, Vox

"While a veritable library of radical theory emerged in the decade he examines--the intellectual ammunition of the protests--his book remains factual and empirical, and therefore highly readable." --Dutch Review of Books

"This insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe." --Kirkus

About the Author

Vincent Bevins is an award-winning journalist and correspondent. He covered Southeast Asia for the Washington Post, reporting from across the entire region. He previously served as the Brazil correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, also covering nearby parts of South America. He is the author of one prior book, The Jakarta Method. Bevins lives in London.