''A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster'' is a book by American writer

Rebecca Solnit Rebecca Solnit (born 1961) is an American writer and activist. She has written on a variety of subjects, including feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art. Solnit is the author of seventeen books, including '' River of Shadows'', whi ...

, published by

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer and then acqu ...

in 2009. The book deals with the aftermath of

disaster A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. '' Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by na ...

s, challenging the traditional narrative of chaos and mass panic with evidence that people typically respond to disaster with altruism,

solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

, and

mutual aid Mutual aid is an organizational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This ...

Background

Solnit lives in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, and ''A Paradise Built in Hell'' was inspired by the

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, PST, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz Cou ...

, which she described as "a remarkable occasion for a lot of us, a moment when everyday life ground to a halt and people looked around and hunkered down". She discussed the earthquake in a Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture she delivered at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 2004, before developing the lecture into an article for ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

'' titled "The Uses of Disaster: Notes on Bad Weather and Good Government". The article was published the same day

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

made landfall in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. This article led to the idea for ''A Paradise Built in Hell'', which Solnit characterized as presenting "a radically different view of human nature and possibility" based on the premise that "what happens in disasters demonstrates everything an anarchist ever wanted to believe about the triumph of civil society and the failure of institutional authority". The book was published in 2009 by

Content

In ''A Paradise Built in Hell'', Solnit largely focuses on five

s and their social aftermath: the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

, the

Halifax Explosion On the morning of 6 December 1917, the French cargo ship collided with the Norwegian vessel in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. ''Mont-Blanc'', laden with Explosive material, high explosives, caught fire and exploded, devastat ...

in 1917, the

1985 Mexico City earthquake The 1985 Mexico City earthquake struck in the early morning of 19 September at 07:17:50 (CST) with a Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 8.0 and a maximal Modified Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''). The ev ...

, the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, and the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. She includes various instances of

social action In sociology, social action, also known as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals (or ' agents'). According to Max Weber, "Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes acc ...

and

altruism Altruism is the concern for the well-being of others, independently of personal benefit or reciprocity. The word ''altruism'' was popularised (and possibly coined) by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in French, as , for an antonym of egoi ...

in response to these disasters, criticizing

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...

' notion of " the war of all against all" by providing evidence that

and cooperation are a typical human response to disasters and the breakdown of official authority. She additionally draws on disaster sociology, recounting the story of

Charles Fritz Charles E. Fritz (1921 – 5 May 2000) was an American scientist pioneering disaster research during and following the Second World War. Fritz was born in Missouri and graduated from Drury University with a good degree in sociology. He then atten ...

and his conclusion that the typical response to disaster is not mass panic but rather "an intimate, primarily group solidarity among the survivors, which overcomes social isolation, provides a channel for intimate communication and expression, and provides a major source of physical and emotional support and reassurance".

Reception

Jonathan D. Greenberg reviewed ''A Paradise Built in Hell'' for the ''

Stanford Social Innovation Review ''Stanford Social Innovation Review'' (''SSIR'') is a magazine and website that covers cross-sector solutions to global problems. ''SSIR'' is written by and for social change leaders from around the world and from all sectors of society—nonprof ...

'', where he described the book as "brilliant". In ''Orion'', a positive review by

Ginger Strand Ginger Strand is an American author of nonfiction and fiction. Her 2005 debut novel ''Flight'' was adapted from several of her short stories. Her published books of non-fiction include ''Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies'' in May 2008, ' ...

stated that while Strand "picked up ''Paradise'' with trepidation born of jingoistic overload ... Solnit is too keen a thinker to fall prey to sentiment". Strand understood the examples in the book "not as a stirring catalogue of good-doing but as a thoughtful assessment of what the human response to disaster can tell us about our political and social structures", and praised Solnit for her "compassion and complexity".

Dwight Garner Dwight Garner (born January 8, 1965) is an American journalist and longtime writer and editor for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, he was named a book critic for the newspaper. He is the author of ''Garner's Quotations: A Modern Miscellany'' and ...

offered a positive review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', characterizing the book as "an investigation not of a thought but of an emotion: the fleeting, purposeful joy that fills human beings in the face of disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and even terrorist attacks". Garner criticized what he saw as Solnit's tendency toward

jargon Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...

but described the book as an achievement.

References

Citations

Works cited

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External links

Excerpt published by ''The New York Times''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paradise Built in Hell, A Books by Rebecca Solnit 2009 non-fiction books Books about anarchism Disaster books Viking Press books