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The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas
We tend to think of revolutions as frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fueling 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 about how to achieve their goals. This extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that—in a world dominated by social media—they might soon go extinct.
Gal Beckerman, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, takes us back to the seventeenth century, to the correspondence that jump-started the scientific revolution, and then forward through time to examine engines of social the petitions that secured the right to vote in 1830s Britain, the zines that gave voice to women’s rage in the early 1990s, and even the messaging apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration. In each case, Beckerman shows that our most defining social movements—from decolonization to feminism—were formed in quiet, closed networks that allowed a small group to incubate their ideas before broadcasting them widely.
But Facebook and Twitter are replacing these productive, private spaces, to the detriment of activists around the world. Why did the Arab Spring fall apart? Why did 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.
Gal Beckerman, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, takes us back to the seventeenth century, to the correspondence that jump-started the scientific revolution, and then forward through time to examine engines of social the petitions that secured the right to vote in 1830s Britain, the zines that gave voice to women’s rage in the early 1990s, and even the messaging apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration. In each case, Beckerman shows that our most defining social movements—from decolonization to feminism—were formed in quiet, closed networks that allowed a small group to incubate their ideas before broadcasting them widely.
But Facebook and Twitter are replacing these productive, private spaces, to the detriment of activists around the world. Why did the Arab Spring fall apart? Why did 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.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published February 15, 2022
About the author
Gal Beckerman
6 books31 followersGal 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
January 25, 2022
The Quiet Before by Gal Beckerman is a compelling argument for creating space for ideas to develop and grow, especially in today's world of instant reaction and often overreaction. This book is less about slow versus fast than it is about developed versus underdeveloped.
Through recreating the groundswell in several historical movements Beckerman shows the value and importance of having a way for ideas to be debated, modified, and shared. Ideas, even the best, are rarely if ever formed in a complete and nuanced manner immediately. It takes input from others, the application of other perspectives, and an understanding of what might make change possible. These can't be done in an openly public forum, particularly when the preferred form of communication is short and hyperbolic. It takes a safe place and form for opinions and ideas to be expressed freely. That is what is missing for many more recent movements which tend to peak quickly and then subside, with little actual long-term change.
This book makes its goal pretty clear in the introduction and stays focused throughout. If a reader loses focus I'd say it has to do with their ability to stay focused rather than the book, or maybe being a passive reader with a short memory span. Either way, the book argues for and offers ideas for creating the space for the thought and debates necessary for movements to succeed and uses the historical examples to illustrate that without that space the movements would either never come to be or would quickly fail. Pretty straightforward purpose and approach.
I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in how to make change. While the examples and the larger purpose is societal, the basic idea of formulating a better theoretical foundation through debate and discussion holds true for small "movements" one might want to generate in their communities or workplaces.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Through recreating the groundswell in several historical movements Beckerman shows the value and importance of having a way for ideas to be debated, modified, and shared. Ideas, even the best, are rarely if ever formed in a complete and nuanced manner immediately. It takes input from others, the application of other perspectives, and an understanding of what might make change possible. These can't be done in an openly public forum, particularly when the preferred form of communication is short and hyperbolic. It takes a safe place and form for opinions and ideas to be expressed freely. That is what is missing for many more recent movements which tend to peak quickly and then subside, with little actual long-term change.
This book makes its goal pretty clear in the introduction and stays focused throughout. If a reader loses focus I'd say it has to do with their ability to stay focused rather than the book, or maybe being a passive reader with a short memory span. Either way, the book argues for and offers ideas for creating the space for the thought and debates necessary for movements to succeed and uses the historical examples to illustrate that without that space the movements would either never come to be or would quickly fail. Pretty straightforward purpose and approach.
I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in how to make change. While the examples and the larger purpose is societal, the basic idea of formulating a better theoretical foundation through debate and discussion holds true for small "movements" one might want to generate in their communities or workplaces.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
January 4, 2022
This book was a bit different than what I had expected. Beckerman takes readers way back in history and tracks the very origins of change. For example, how many were brought together to truly begin the study of latitude, longitude and scientific study, how an early petition in England effected much later big change, how Riot Grrrls impacted the rise of the me too movement and, of course stories of how early internet communications changed our world slower than one would think. The ‘Interlude’ on cyberspace was insightful on the early hopes for internet communications. Overall, how stories of small, slow change effected much larger change in our world.
My expectation was that it would give insight on how to make change happen and it did give me much insight into this. But actually, he shows that large changes are brought about very slowly, one step at a time by dedicated individuals, over long periods of time. Stacy Abrams is a great example of this in todays world. She started with small meetings all over Georgia and over many years. Today we can see the outcomes of her hard work and dedication to her mission. Well researched and very interesting, this book changed my thinking that change happens all at once. A good lesson in today’s world. I truly appreciated Beckerman’s research and perspective. I learned lots!
My thanks to Crown Publicity and Random House for the advance copy of this book. I look forward to others reading, discussing and learning from these examples.
My expectation was that it would give insight on how to make change happen and it did give me much insight into this. But actually, he shows that large changes are brought about very slowly, one step at a time by dedicated individuals, over long periods of time. Stacy Abrams is a great example of this in todays world. She started with small meetings all over Georgia and over many years. Today we can see the outcomes of her hard work and dedication to her mission. Well researched and very interesting, this book changed my thinking that change happens all at once. A good lesson in today’s world. I truly appreciated Beckerman’s research and perspective. I learned lots!
My thanks to Crown Publicity and Random House for the advance copy of this book. I look forward to others reading, discussing and learning from these examples.
September 26, 2023
Este es un libro periodístico, aunque no podría llamarlo libro de crónicas periodísticas porque no lo son. Creo que son artículos de investigación y datos. El hilo que vincula a unos con otros es más bien instrumental y menos historiográfico, y un poco menos sociológico de lo que el título del libro propio propone. No es una relación de qué es lo que lleva al hombre o al ciudadano a desarrollar ideas radicales, no. Y por eso ya pierde puntos el libro, porque dice ser algo que no es. Regresando al hilo que vincula un texto con otro, éste es la palabra escrita como forma de comunicación, sea a manera de cartas, peticiones, manifiestos, y sus equivalentes en el mundo virtual: mensajes en foros y plataformas, mensajes en redes sociales, grupos de activismo virtuales, etc. Así, tenemos un recorrido por la correspondencia del científico del siglo XVII, el francés Peiresec, en su empresa incesante por determinar el verdadero tamaño del Mar Mediterráneo; pasando por la petición redactada y firmada por un grupo de obreros de Manchester que reclamaban sus derechos en 1839, entre ellos, el derecho al voto. En este mosaico de eventos históricos, está también el movimiento futurista italiano comandado por el artista Marinetti y el escritor Giovanni Papini en 1913; el nacimiento de la prensa libre en Costa de Oro, África, en 1935, siendo colonia inglesa (y las luchas intestinas entre tribus y colonos); el nacimiento de los samizdat en la URSS, que eran publicaciones furtivas independientes e ilegales que burlaban la censura y el control del régimen; así como el origen de los fanzines contraculturales (publicaciones independientes hechas con copiadoras) de mujeres en el Washington de los tempranos noventas. En esta parte, el libro da el salto a la esfera digital, el ciberespacio, y narra algunos de los movimientos sociales surgidas de allí, como el movimiento egipcio del 2011, análogo a la Primavera Árabe, en el que renunció el entonces presidente; las manifestaciones del movimiento supremacista blanco en 2017 en Charlottesville que terminaron con un atropellamiento colectivo por parte de un radical del movimiento; también se dedica un capítulo a la correspondencia por correo electrónico de un grupo de científicos que alertaban y analizaban la pandemia de COVID en 2020 y que no fueron escuchados por el gobierno estadounidense. Finalmente, se aborda el movimiento de redes que dio origen al Black Lives Matter en EEUU.
Ahora, si bien lo que une a todas estas historias a través del tiempo es el soporte de la palabra escrita y la herramienta de la comunicación utilizada en dependencia de las posibilidades y avances tecnológicos de su tiempo, lo que liga en verdad a todas estas historias es el fracaso, del propio soporte incluso, de la propia herramienta comunicacional. Y es que ésta, al parecer, era la intención del autor, la cual queda claro al leer los diversos capítulos, aunque no lo aclara tanto en el epílogo. La idea es que todos los soportes y vías de comunicación colectiva son falibles, y lo son aún más las surgidas de la esfera virtual.
Para concluir, creo que el autor se pierde en su intención de narrar momentos claves quizás no tan conocidos de la Historia de la comunicación, pues se queda corto en su narrativa: su estilo periodístico de datos y hechos resulta poco atractivo para un libro que merecía por su título un mejor desenvolvimiento de su prosa, por más periodística que sea. Incluso lo periodístico no funciona tan bien, pues la redundancia y la repetición no permiten una fluidez adecuada. En conclusión, pudo haber sido mejor narrado.
Ahora, si bien lo que une a todas estas historias a través del tiempo es el soporte de la palabra escrita y la herramienta de la comunicación utilizada en dependencia de las posibilidades y avances tecnológicos de su tiempo, lo que liga en verdad a todas estas historias es el fracaso, del propio soporte incluso, de la propia herramienta comunicacional. Y es que ésta, al parecer, era la intención del autor, la cual queda claro al leer los diversos capítulos, aunque no lo aclara tanto en el epílogo. La idea es que todos los soportes y vías de comunicación colectiva son falibles, y lo son aún más las surgidas de la esfera virtual.
Para concluir, creo que el autor se pierde en su intención de narrar momentos claves quizás no tan conocidos de la Historia de la comunicación, pues se queda corto en su narrativa: su estilo periodístico de datos y hechos resulta poco atractivo para un libro que merecía por su título un mejor desenvolvimiento de su prosa, por más periodística que sea. Incluso lo periodístico no funciona tan bien, pues la redundancia y la repetición no permiten una fluidez adecuada. En conclusión, pudo haber sido mejor narrado.
January 24, 2022
This book was a mixed bag. I thought it painted a pretty good picture of most of the events he discussed and I appreciated the chapters on the riot grrls and on Covid. I thought the book lacked focus and I'm still unsure what the main goal of the author was. Also, the book has less to do with the original ideas than it does the communication of said ideas.
Honestly if this was written by as a look at the evolution of communication among groups, I think it could have worked better. Still there is enough info here to recommend this book to those interested in learning about some of our society's revolutions.
Thank you to Crown Publications for the advance copy
Honestly if this was written by as a look at the evolution of communication among groups, I think it could have worked better. Still there is enough info here to recommend this book to those interested in learning about some of our society's revolutions.
Thank you to Crown Publications for the advance copy
April 8, 2022
Makes me appreciate the times I’ve sat down with close friends and had a good conversation and a couple arguments. This book proves that radical change begins at these tables. Really well-written and researched as well
April 26, 2022
Gal Beckerman’s delicious new book, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, isn’t quite what the title implies. His introduction suggests that it’s about the roots of revolutions, the typically unseen efforts that we later recognize as having planted seeds of change. “People don’t just cut off the king’s head,” he writes. “For years and even decades they gossip about him, imagine him naked and ridiculous, demote him from deity to fallible mortal (with a head, which can be cut).” This talking, in Beckerman’s persuasive rendering, is what transforms a small group of people concerned with an injustice into a body with a purpose, and it’s a delicate process. “The incubation of radical new ideas is a very distinct process with certain conditions: a tight space, lots of heat, passionate whispering, and a degree of freedom to argue and work toward a common, focused aim.”
That’s from the first pages. Ten chapters later, it turns out The Quiet Before is about something else entirely: a plea for thoughtful deliberation in an age of cacophony. If you want to know how Nelson Mandela and his compatriots built the African National Congress into a force that could end apartheid, or how Lech Walesa and his comrades organized the inter-factory strike committee representing 500 factories where workers had all occupied their shop floors, spawning Solidarity, the first independent trade union in a Communist dictatorship, you won’t any answers in The Quiet Before. Because Beckerman is really after different game, not the organizing that turns dissent into power, but the spawning grounds for ideas that challenge the status quo.
Read the rest of my review here: https://theconnector.substack.com/p/w...
That’s from the first pages. Ten chapters later, it turns out The Quiet Before is about something else entirely: a plea for thoughtful deliberation in an age of cacophony. If you want to know how Nelson Mandela and his compatriots built the African National Congress into a force that could end apartheid, or how Lech Walesa and his comrades organized the inter-factory strike committee representing 500 factories where workers had all occupied their shop floors, spawning Solidarity, the first independent trade union in a Communist dictatorship, you won’t any answers in The Quiet Before. Because Beckerman is really after different game, not the organizing that turns dissent into power, but the spawning grounds for ideas that challenge the status quo.
Read the rest of my review here: https://theconnector.substack.com/p/w...
June 15, 2022
I highly recommend this for anyone interested in media studies, technology, and political change. It is a very well-written book about five centuries of various mediums and the way they do-or don't-spark social change. The first half of the book explores written mediums (letter-writing, petitions, manifestos, newspapers, zines) and the ways through trying and failing they achieved social change in the long-term. Then, an interlude shifted from the 20th century into the 21st, toward the internet and social media, consider online mediums (Facebook, Discord, twitter DM's, email chains, and hashtags), and the limits of this fast-paced communication for sustaining social change. Finally, he closes with Arendt's philosophy around the physical tables that bind us together, and the corners of social media that present hope for the future. He ultimately challenges the reader to consider what slower forms of communication might offer human becoming, authentic connection, and social transformation.
May 5, 2022
4 stars
The main writing are focused on six vignettes, differing historical and current movements and the social networks that arose around these shifts through various kinds of political and cultural activism. Beckerman uses rather eccentric examples to consider how radical ideas that challenge the status quo usually do best incubating for a long time within small, thoughtful groups of organizers.There is always a struggle to use social networks to their advantage, as far back as his history takes us. Beckerman uses a few narratives to exemplify how they fail, the inability of certain tactics to take on institutional structures. This does make an interesting read because it's uncommon histories about people you rarely hear about, the ones behind the movements we commonly think of as grass roots.
Perhaps surprisingly, Beckerman examines reactionary movements such as the Alt Right, as it mobilized on social media sites such as Discord or the Italian Futurism. This confused me about what exactly his aims were in the book, was he equating all radical ideas, either progressive or regressive? However, it became slightly more clear as the book concluded, that he is mainly focused on how outlying ideas, in general, find themselves within the new mediums of the Internet and by what means activists use or not use popular social media sites such as Facebook. He doesn't view Twitter and Facebook as fruitful grounds for thoughtful discussion and lasting change which is well....nothing new. So, whether or not the movements he outlined are something he agrees with or not, he wants to glean knowledge how they are amassing followers and using their particular message and mediums to create communities.
I found this book fascinating and wanted to learn more about some my favorite chapter's history. It was just a bit of a jumble and although I think his thesis wasn't entirely new, it was put forward in a unique way. I felt the author wasn't sure how to make his point until the book was pretty much written. Still, do not regret reading.
The main writing are focused on six vignettes, differing historical and current movements and the social networks that arose around these shifts through various kinds of political and cultural activism. Beckerman uses rather eccentric examples to consider how radical ideas that challenge the status quo usually do best incubating for a long time within small, thoughtful groups of organizers.There is always a struggle to use social networks to their advantage, as far back as his history takes us. Beckerman uses a few narratives to exemplify how they fail, the inability of certain tactics to take on institutional structures. This does make an interesting read because it's uncommon histories about people you rarely hear about, the ones behind the movements we commonly think of as grass roots.
Perhaps surprisingly, Beckerman examines reactionary movements such as the Alt Right, as it mobilized on social media sites such as Discord or the Italian Futurism. This confused me about what exactly his aims were in the book, was he equating all radical ideas, either progressive or regressive? However, it became slightly more clear as the book concluded, that he is mainly focused on how outlying ideas, in general, find themselves within the new mediums of the Internet and by what means activists use or not use popular social media sites such as Facebook. He doesn't view Twitter and Facebook as fruitful grounds for thoughtful discussion and lasting change which is well....nothing new. So, whether or not the movements he outlined are something he agrees with or not, he wants to glean knowledge how they are amassing followers and using their particular message and mediums to create communities.
I found this book fascinating and wanted to learn more about some my favorite chapter's history. It was just a bit of a jumble and although I think his thesis wasn't entirely new, it was put forward in a unique way. I felt the author wasn't sure how to make his point until the book was pretty much written. Still, do not regret reading.
January 20, 2023
One of the most interesting things I've read in a while.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2023
A great journy through the success and failures in the communication of ideas from Aix-En-Provence in 1635 through Minneapolis in 2020. Beckerman successfully narrates the relationship between a desire to measure the Mediterranen by wiritng letters to the successes and disappointments in the Black Lives Matter movement. A four hundred year journey about the strengths and weaknesses about how we communicate. While the tools of communication have changed, the failures of communication in the 17th century and replicated in new ways in the 21st century
February 12, 2023
My first impression was that the author lost track of his purpose, as set out in the beginning. I then thought he wanted to tell these stories and might not have a thesis/purpose for the book.
Unfortunately, the book tells several stories of people trying to drive change, mostly unsuccessfully. The author wants to focus on the method/tools and gets across a few messages. Social media isn't inherently a tool for change. Protests in and of themselves don't drive change either.
The author never makes a case for what process, tools, and means are most effective in his opinion, and therefore the book is a major disappointment.
Unfortunately, the book tells several stories of people trying to drive change, mostly unsuccessfully. The author wants to focus on the method/tools and gets across a few messages. Social media isn't inherently a tool for change. Protests in and of themselves don't drive change either.
The author never makes a case for what process, tools, and means are most effective in his opinion, and therefore the book is a major disappointment.
April 16, 2022
This book is not what I was expecting. I like random history but I did not enjoy the book, I found 2 chapters interesting It felt like a mess with so much detail. The point got lost in all the words. More summarizing would have helped me, also it would have been nice knowing what the radical idea was at the beginning instead of at the end. Honestly, I skimmed read through most chapters because I was so bored reading through everything. I felt more recent events were easier to read and put together better. At the end, I looked back and thought what was even the point.
June 18, 2022
This was just okay. But the title threw me off. I was hoping for a book about incubation and the confidential ideas that must start small to change the world. It was more about getting loud and getting coalitions. Interesting but not the promise of the book. So I had some dissonance. I still want to read the book I had hoped for.
April 10, 2022
Post-pandemic is a phrase deep in the ether. Our ability to reconnect socially and pursue a new “social contract” is the positive light guiding up from this difficult time. One can envision this period as a time when we collectively reassess the fairness of the social contract. Movements like “Black Lives Matter” , “Me Too”, the larger strides for representation and visibility among the LGBT+ appear to be reshaping our culture. Isolating forces from social media and remote connection disembody us and amplify broadcast. One of the cruel paradoxes of technology is the over-valuation of online platforms to take the place of conversation, debate, sharing of values and perhaps consensus. The platform is the message. Underlying algorithms, tweet lengths, emoji selection, and our search keywords are the tools of expression and deterministic of our online experience.
Gal Beckerman’s narrative-driven “The Quiet Before” share stories of individuals who uses technology to reframe the world around them. These stories reflect the budding flowers of social movement. Originators rarely take the proverbial David’s gladiator stance against Goliath. Rather there are periods of incubation, turmoil, confusion, and the general disquieting human experience of entropy. “People don’t just cut off the king’s head“ (p.2); rather there must be a place to build a strong identity, share goals and creation of a movement (p.5).
The stories do not share a common goal, but ladder like monkey bars across the expanse of time . Beginning with a triumph of the Renaissance, a scientific man Peirsec, starts out on an idiosyncratic endeavor, to use geometry and peer reviewed insights to calculate longitudinal coordinates on the Mediterranean Sea. The exploration of African identity admist post-Colonial British soft power is explored; an editor of the “African Morning Post” Nnamdi Azikiwe shares politically wakened coffeehouse chat and forms “the embryo of the nationally imagined community (p.89). The radical form shattering of the Italian Futurists entered the early twentieth century with a distaste for norms and civil society. The resulting manifestos on gender, violence, taste , and liberation resulted in renewal spirit among the artistic intent. These stories are all wonderfully written, and as a reader I hadn’t encountered their stories.
The hyper modern stories of social change 20 years are particularly refresh and interesting. These stories carry a sense of self-consciousness that reflect the panopticon of the Web 2.0 era. The political divides of the Alt-Right and Black Lives Matter/Black Visions are shared in adjacent chapters. Although the politics of these groups are not aligned, both groups struggle for community acceptance, managing the messaging, and awareness of mainstream media to influence the narrative. Miski Noor’s involvement with a BLM chapter is a bright stop about social change with discipline and community support. Her actions to build shared values, have personal connection, work with the political power brokers and make meaningful reform in the Minneapolis community were largely outside of the flame-throwing social media platforms.
All and all a great selection of reads, and Beckerman manages to share riveting stories that tap into our own feelings for community, power, respect, affirmation, connection and acceptance. Social media, as it exists now, can not be the arena for true change. The limits of this tools to foster connection and build community is understood by many of us. New tools, discussed toward the end of the book (and an opportunity for a great sequel, are explored as a way to maintain private connections, build locaility, and incentivize wider expression of views (notably the Twain sunflower movement). Building our best world is no easy task. And often that involvement lurks in the patience shadows of people willing to create meaningful change.
Gal Beckerman’s narrative-driven “The Quiet Before” share stories of individuals who uses technology to reframe the world around them. These stories reflect the budding flowers of social movement. Originators rarely take the proverbial David’s gladiator stance against Goliath. Rather there are periods of incubation, turmoil, confusion, and the general disquieting human experience of entropy. “People don’t just cut off the king’s head“ (p.2); rather there must be a place to build a strong identity, share goals and creation of a movement (p.5).
The stories do not share a common goal, but ladder like monkey bars across the expanse of time . Beginning with a triumph of the Renaissance, a scientific man Peirsec, starts out on an idiosyncratic endeavor, to use geometry and peer reviewed insights to calculate longitudinal coordinates on the Mediterranean Sea. The exploration of African identity admist post-Colonial British soft power is explored; an editor of the “African Morning Post” Nnamdi Azikiwe shares politically wakened coffeehouse chat and forms “the embryo of the nationally imagined community (p.89). The radical form shattering of the Italian Futurists entered the early twentieth century with a distaste for norms and civil society. The resulting manifestos on gender, violence, taste , and liberation resulted in renewal spirit among the artistic intent. These stories are all wonderfully written, and as a reader I hadn’t encountered their stories.
The hyper modern stories of social change 20 years are particularly refresh and interesting. These stories carry a sense of self-consciousness that reflect the panopticon of the Web 2.0 era. The political divides of the Alt-Right and Black Lives Matter/Black Visions are shared in adjacent chapters. Although the politics of these groups are not aligned, both groups struggle for community acceptance, managing the messaging, and awareness of mainstream media to influence the narrative. Miski Noor’s involvement with a BLM chapter is a bright stop about social change with discipline and community support. Her actions to build shared values, have personal connection, work with the political power brokers and make meaningful reform in the Minneapolis community were largely outside of the flame-throwing social media platforms.
All and all a great selection of reads, and Beckerman manages to share riveting stories that tap into our own feelings for community, power, respect, affirmation, connection and acceptance. Social media, as it exists now, can not be the arena for true change. The limits of this tools to foster connection and build community is understood by many of us. New tools, discussed toward the end of the book (and an opportunity for a great sequel, are explored as a way to maintain private connections, build locaility, and incentivize wider expression of views (notably the Twain sunflower movement). Building our best world is no easy task. And often that involvement lurks in the patience shadows of people willing to create meaningful change.
July 3, 2022
This is a fun book that is written for a wide audience, rather than being a particularly deep insight into radicalism. It has two main points: 1) Radical ideas need time to incubate. 2) They need an appropriate and effective medium to do that. That medium shapes the ideas being discussed and creates an imagined community of people in the network who are interested in the same issues.
The first half of the book is about specific instances where new/radical ideas were developed prior to the internet. The are great stories and well told, but I keep waiting for Beckerman to show how the ideas had a long term impact. I may have made a poor assumption in thinking that was part of his plan, because he just doesn't do it. Aside from the Chartists in England, he doesn't make any connections between the incubating ideas and their later move to the mainstream.
The second half of the book is about the internet age and that feels much more relevant. He looks at how different social media outlets were used, essentially showing they public discussion is good for riling people up, but bad for development of ideas. The events/movements he looks were driven at least partly by the medium in use at the time, which shaped how the movements developed. He finishes by musing on what platforms would be better for future movements and noting that using a social media platform at all distances us from those we are working with and for.
All-in-all, I enjoyed this book a lot. The first half is fun and the second half is informative. I suggest giving it a go.
I put in chapter summaries to organize my thoughts and so I can review them later:
The first chapter is about a man (Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc) writing letters in the 17th century to arrange an observation of an eclipse from different points around the Mediterranean. His goal is to develop longitude and figure out how far places actually are from each other. Beckerman uses this as an example of the medium of letters promoting the idea of the scientific method. He also points out that Galileo challenged the church directly and spent the rest of his life under house arrest, whereas Peiresc pushed the Pope politely without a direct challenge and proceeded to discreetly pursue his endeavors. Beckerman implies that this was the more effective way to affect change.
He moves through other time periods in history with similar themes. In England in the 1830s, he looks at the Chartist movement and the value of the petition. It fails in the short term, in part because of violence from its supporters when the first petition is laughed at, but succeeds in the long term by showing the petition matters and promoting the reasonableness of universal suffrage in a supposed representative democracy.
He then moves to Italy just before WWI and looks at the futurists and manifestos. This was probably the weakest part of the book, failing to show any real effect other than a tangential impact/relationship with Mussolini. Focusing on the futurists suggests that he wanted an interesting story more than an enlightening one.
Moving to Accra in the 1930s, he looks at newspapers and anti-imperialism. His protagonist, Nnamdi Asikiwe (Zik) was a newspaper editor who helped build a sense of the injustice of imperialism in the Gold Coast. He was acquitted in a sedition trial and moved back to his native Nigeria, where he became its first elected president. Beckerman combines the medium of newspapers, which in this case functioned as a message board does today, with African nationalism.
The section on dissidents in the Soviet Union is very interesting, following an independent publication, called a "samizdat", which was passed from person to person and chronicled abuses by the government. It is a fascinating case, but like other example Beckerman uses, he assumes that it had a long term impact without showing the slightest bit of evidence. To the best of my knowledge, samizdat was an example of trying to resist an oppressive power, but had almost nothing to do with the eventual Gorbachev policy of glasnost.
The chapter on "zines" is one of the best. It looks at an "underground" culture of homemade magazines spawned by young women (usually white and middle-class) that discussed the raw side of feminism (rape, sexual harassment, among others). It was decentralized and hard to define until it got picked up by the mainstream press, which tried to define it and did a poor job. The unexpected and unwanted attention undermined the point of the movement, although "movement" suggests more organization than there actually was. It finishes with the rise of the Spice Girls claimed "Girl Power" for themselves while creating a commercialized image of women that the zines community would have condemned and mocked. Perhaps I liked this chapter not just because of the interesting sub-culture described, but also because the author doesn't claim that the zines started a movement. I was surprised he didn't associate it with the #MeToo movement, which may have been affected by the zines and then by the mainstream coverage of them to make sexual assault something that can and should be discussed.
The interim section brings us into the virtual world, talking about the WELL as a virtual community to discuss issues online in the San Francisco area in the 1980s. This is where the book started coming together as many of the previous chapters were about how the exchange of ideas created an imagined community without actually meeting and it sets up the rest of the book. The creators of the WELL thought it would be a revolutionary medium, which it was, but not necessarily in an enlightened way. It experienced the same issues of anger and intolerance that more recent social media platforms have faced.
Now this is getting good. This chapter talks about Facebook and how it affected the Arab Spring in Egypt. It argues, persuasively, that Facebook is a great way to make people upset, but a terrible way to get things done. Facebook substantially helped organize and mobilize protesters to bring down Mubarak's regime, but the protesters weren't prepared to step into the vacuum. The Muslim Brotherhood was much better organized and crushed the protesters in elections, even though it had very little impact on the downfall of Mubarak. Its leaders disdain for democracy eventually gave the military an excuse to reintroduce its rule with even less freedom.
The author then moves to Charlottesville in 2018. The author looks at how white supremacists used Discord to create private chats to really work out plans, as opposed to using a public format like Facebook. This worked for them because they could hash out ideas (most of which were truly horrible, morally and logically) and then organize well. They faced the problem of a movement that is by its nature exclusive wanting to include as many protesters as possible, so they had to compromise on some of their ideological purity to bring in more people. Their goal was to make the "alt-right" more mainstream. Once it came into the light at Charlottesville, that hope died because most Americans (the president not included) thought they were abhorrent. But the president's tacit approval of them was a victory of sorts.
When looking at the covid 19 pandemic, he focuses on researchers in a private network who were trying to find solutions with limited data. They did a remarkable job, but it clashed with the reality the White House was pushing, so science was pushed to the side. In general, when he discusses Trump, Beckermand manages to be dispassionate in his analysis, even though Trump was a negative influence on nearly everything he touched.
The final substantive chapter is about BLM and social media. It looks at how BLM was largely driven by big events that sparked substantial social media responses, but achieved relatively little. It looks at a Miami based civil-rights organization that went off social media for ten weeks to go to a more grassroots approach. This was followed by the Minneapolis-based Black Visions, which emerged from BLM after its members noticed a lack of tangible change. The message of the chapter is that social media creates a lot of hype without a lot of impact, so organizing locally is a much more effective option, even though it requires much more vigilance and effort.
The first half of the book is about specific instances where new/radical ideas were developed prior to the internet. The are great stories and well told, but I keep waiting for Beckerman to show how the ideas had a long term impact. I may have made a poor assumption in thinking that was part of his plan, because he just doesn't do it. Aside from the Chartists in England, he doesn't make any connections between the incubating ideas and their later move to the mainstream.
The second half of the book is about the internet age and that feels much more relevant. He looks at how different social media outlets were used, essentially showing they public discussion is good for riling people up, but bad for development of ideas. The events/movements he looks were driven at least partly by the medium in use at the time, which shaped how the movements developed. He finishes by musing on what platforms would be better for future movements and noting that using a social media platform at all distances us from those we are working with and for.
All-in-all, I enjoyed this book a lot. The first half is fun and the second half is informative. I suggest giving it a go.
I put in chapter summaries to organize my thoughts and so I can review them later:
The first chapter is about a man (Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc) writing letters in the 17th century to arrange an observation of an eclipse from different points around the Mediterranean. His goal is to develop longitude and figure out how far places actually are from each other. Beckerman uses this as an example of the medium of letters promoting the idea of the scientific method. He also points out that Galileo challenged the church directly and spent the rest of his life under house arrest, whereas Peiresc pushed the Pope politely without a direct challenge and proceeded to discreetly pursue his endeavors. Beckerman implies that this was the more effective way to affect change.
He moves through other time periods in history with similar themes. In England in the 1830s, he looks at the Chartist movement and the value of the petition. It fails in the short term, in part because of violence from its supporters when the first petition is laughed at, but succeeds in the long term by showing the petition matters and promoting the reasonableness of universal suffrage in a supposed representative democracy.
He then moves to Italy just before WWI and looks at the futurists and manifestos. This was probably the weakest part of the book, failing to show any real effect other than a tangential impact/relationship with Mussolini. Focusing on the futurists suggests that he wanted an interesting story more than an enlightening one.
Moving to Accra in the 1930s, he looks at newspapers and anti-imperialism. His protagonist, Nnamdi Asikiwe (Zik) was a newspaper editor who helped build a sense of the injustice of imperialism in the Gold Coast. He was acquitted in a sedition trial and moved back to his native Nigeria, where he became its first elected president. Beckerman combines the medium of newspapers, which in this case functioned as a message board does today, with African nationalism.
The section on dissidents in the Soviet Union is very interesting, following an independent publication, called a "samizdat", which was passed from person to person and chronicled abuses by the government. It is a fascinating case, but like other example Beckerman uses, he assumes that it had a long term impact without showing the slightest bit of evidence. To the best of my knowledge, samizdat was an example of trying to resist an oppressive power, but had almost nothing to do with the eventual Gorbachev policy of glasnost.
The chapter on "zines" is one of the best. It looks at an "underground" culture of homemade magazines spawned by young women (usually white and middle-class) that discussed the raw side of feminism (rape, sexual harassment, among others). It was decentralized and hard to define until it got picked up by the mainstream press, which tried to define it and did a poor job. The unexpected and unwanted attention undermined the point of the movement, although "movement" suggests more organization than there actually was. It finishes with the rise of the Spice Girls claimed "Girl Power" for themselves while creating a commercialized image of women that the zines community would have condemned and mocked. Perhaps I liked this chapter not just because of the interesting sub-culture described, but also because the author doesn't claim that the zines started a movement. I was surprised he didn't associate it with the #MeToo movement, which may have been affected by the zines and then by the mainstream coverage of them to make sexual assault something that can and should be discussed.
The interim section brings us into the virtual world, talking about the WELL as a virtual community to discuss issues online in the San Francisco area in the 1980s. This is where the book started coming together as many of the previous chapters were about how the exchange of ideas created an imagined community without actually meeting and it sets up the rest of the book. The creators of the WELL thought it would be a revolutionary medium, which it was, but not necessarily in an enlightened way. It experienced the same issues of anger and intolerance that more recent social media platforms have faced.
Now this is getting good. This chapter talks about Facebook and how it affected the Arab Spring in Egypt. It argues, persuasively, that Facebook is a great way to make people upset, but a terrible way to get things done. Facebook substantially helped organize and mobilize protesters to bring down Mubarak's regime, but the protesters weren't prepared to step into the vacuum. The Muslim Brotherhood was much better organized and crushed the protesters in elections, even though it had very little impact on the downfall of Mubarak. Its leaders disdain for democracy eventually gave the military an excuse to reintroduce its rule with even less freedom.
The author then moves to Charlottesville in 2018. The author looks at how white supremacists used Discord to create private chats to really work out plans, as opposed to using a public format like Facebook. This worked for them because they could hash out ideas (most of which were truly horrible, morally and logically) and then organize well. They faced the problem of a movement that is by its nature exclusive wanting to include as many protesters as possible, so they had to compromise on some of their ideological purity to bring in more people. Their goal was to make the "alt-right" more mainstream. Once it came into the light at Charlottesville, that hope died because most Americans (the president not included) thought they were abhorrent. But the president's tacit approval of them was a victory of sorts.
When looking at the covid 19 pandemic, he focuses on researchers in a private network who were trying to find solutions with limited data. They did a remarkable job, but it clashed with the reality the White House was pushing, so science was pushed to the side. In general, when he discusses Trump, Beckermand manages to be dispassionate in his analysis, even though Trump was a negative influence on nearly everything he touched.
The final substantive chapter is about BLM and social media. It looks at how BLM was largely driven by big events that sparked substantial social media responses, but achieved relatively little. It looks at a Miami based civil-rights organization that went off social media for ten weeks to go to a more grassroots approach. This was followed by the Minneapolis-based Black Visions, which emerged from BLM after its members noticed a lack of tangible change. The message of the chapter is that social media creates a lot of hype without a lot of impact, so organizing locally is a much more effective option, even though it requires much more vigilance and effort.
September 25, 2023
Thank you, NetGalley, for granting me a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
I'm not entirely sure what The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas was about, and I don't think the author was either. It's ostensibly about the first rumblings of revolution throughout history, except for when it isn't. The first half of the book features a series of case studies about young radicals whose ideas inspired mass movements. The evidence for this is dubious (did punk-rock zines inspire the #MeToo movement over twenty years later? How did a feminist writer influence the second wave of feminism when her work wasn't even published until after the movement already started?) The most generous interpretation is that these examples show how major events were percolating among ordinary people for years before emerging as a force for change. That may have been the intention, but Beckerman doesn't present his case in a way that ties the cause and effect together.
This is further complicated by the second half of the book, which deserts the book's original concept entirely and instead focuses on modern movements that were undone by social media. This is a curious approach, since the first half only focused on how radical ideas started, not how they ended, and failed to include other historical movements that ended badly for one reason or another (the French and Russian revolutions, for example).
The scope is also strangely disproportionate. The chapter on alt-right Charlottesville protesters is undeniably disturbing, but it's tiny footnote in the history of the 21st century compared to the Arab Spring. One involves a pain-staking combing of Discord messages, while the other involves mass protests and the removal of an Egyptian president. (Even more bizarre is how Beckerman is convinced that social media was destined to undermine the Arab Spring, while also believing that a free internet guarantees the survival of white supremacist movements). While Beckerman admits that defunding the police is an unpopular objective within the Black community, he insists that this is because the public doesn't understand the alternative. But what is the alternative? He never explains how BLM advocates plan to tackle violent crime without a well-funded police force. We're just supposed to accept that these activists are in the right because Beckerman says they are.
At it's best, this all shows how social media frequently hampers the causes it originally emboldens. At its worse, it's a call for censorship and preventing people from--gasp--privately messaging each other online. Either way, it's focused less on the incubation of ideas and more on the perils of the internet. There are some good ideas buried in here, but The Quiet Before is too messy and disorganized to properly explore them.
I'm not entirely sure what The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas was about, and I don't think the author was either. It's ostensibly about the first rumblings of revolution throughout history, except for when it isn't. The first half of the book features a series of case studies about young radicals whose ideas inspired mass movements. The evidence for this is dubious (did punk-rock zines inspire the #MeToo movement over twenty years later? How did a feminist writer influence the second wave of feminism when her work wasn't even published until after the movement already started?) The most generous interpretation is that these examples show how major events were percolating among ordinary people for years before emerging as a force for change. That may have been the intention, but Beckerman doesn't present his case in a way that ties the cause and effect together.
This is further complicated by the second half of the book, which deserts the book's original concept entirely and instead focuses on modern movements that were undone by social media. This is a curious approach, since the first half only focused on how radical ideas started, not how they ended, and failed to include other historical movements that ended badly for one reason or another (the French and Russian revolutions, for example).
The scope is also strangely disproportionate. The chapter on alt-right Charlottesville protesters is undeniably disturbing, but it's tiny footnote in the history of the 21st century compared to the Arab Spring. One involves a pain-staking combing of Discord messages, while the other involves mass protests and the removal of an Egyptian president. (Even more bizarre is how Beckerman is convinced that social media was destined to undermine the Arab Spring, while also believing that a free internet guarantees the survival of white supremacist movements). While Beckerman admits that defunding the police is an unpopular objective within the Black community, he insists that this is because the public doesn't understand the alternative. But what is the alternative? He never explains how BLM advocates plan to tackle violent crime without a well-funded police force. We're just supposed to accept that these activists are in the right because Beckerman says they are.
At it's best, this all shows how social media frequently hampers the causes it originally emboldens. At its worse, it's a call for censorship and preventing people from--gasp--privately messaging each other online. Either way, it's focused less on the incubation of ideas and more on the perils of the internet. There are some good ideas buried in here, but The Quiet Before is too messy and disorganized to properly explore them.
January 31, 2023
This is an engaging collection of examples of the power of communication to create movements that change the status quo in society and thought. The author’s narratives show that two critical elements to the power of the written word to build a movement, to influence thinking, is time and a small group - what the author characterizes as a quiet network of private spaces. Time is an “incubation” period for organizing and refining a message to support a movement over the long term.
The first half of this book are examples of the printed word. Petitions giving voice to the disenfranchised. Manifestos of the Italian Futurist movement influenced Mussolini, and also birthed a rebuttal manifesto that many years later influenced young women in their revisioning of feminism. Opinion columns in small, local African newspapers subverted English colonial rule. Underground newspapers - the samizdat - during the post-Stalin years birthed glasnost. Zines - homemade magazines - gave an outlet to young women who were outsiders in the feminist movement.
The second half are examples from our digital age, such as the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, etc., illustrating why the internet as a platform for change has potential, but its effectiveness remains open.
While all the narratives in this book are interesting, two highlights for this reader were the chapters on the samizdat movement and the group of scientists & specialists who worked with email behind the scenes during the COVID pandemic to disseminate responses to dealing with the pandemic as the science changed and the Trump White House and the CDC clashed.
A complementary book that also illustrates the power & weaknesses of communication this reader recommends is THE PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY: FREE SPEECH, OPEN MEDIA, AND PERILOUS PERSUASION by Zac Gershberg & Sean Illing.
The first half of this book are examples of the printed word. Petitions giving voice to the disenfranchised. Manifestos of the Italian Futurist movement influenced Mussolini, and also birthed a rebuttal manifesto that many years later influenced young women in their revisioning of feminism. Opinion columns in small, local African newspapers subverted English colonial rule. Underground newspapers - the samizdat - during the post-Stalin years birthed glasnost. Zines - homemade magazines - gave an outlet to young women who were outsiders in the feminist movement.
The second half are examples from our digital age, such as the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, etc., illustrating why the internet as a platform for change has potential, but its effectiveness remains open.
While all the narratives in this book are interesting, two highlights for this reader were the chapters on the samizdat movement and the group of scientists & specialists who worked with email behind the scenes during the COVID pandemic to disseminate responses to dealing with the pandemic as the science changed and the Trump White House and the CDC clashed.
A complementary book that also illustrates the power & weaknesses of communication this reader recommends is THE PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY: FREE SPEECH, OPEN MEDIA, AND PERILOUS PERSUASION by Zac Gershberg & Sean Illing.
May 27, 2022
How do people with a vision bring about real, systemic change in the world? I think that's a question that resonates for many of us right now. It certainly does for me.
We live in a time when it is (relatively) easy to rally people to a cause and to get them to take immediate action. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are fantastic for this.
But systemic change doesn't happen because of "an" action. It happens when a group of people carry out sustained, organized effort over a long period of time. For that to work, the group needs to forge a shared identity and do the hard work of figuring out what they collectively believe and what strategies they will pursue on a sustained basis.
That task requires a very different platform, something more like a table where people gather in private than a public square. As Beckerman puts it, "It's the tables that allow for new identities and possibilities to form." 6/10
In exploring this idea Beckerman takes us on a journey through time, looking at the many ways people have created that table, starting with letters in the early 17th century and exploring a variety of platforms used around the world in the centuries since.
He concludes by reflecting on what might be the right platform for change today. And comes to the conclusion that that is the wrong question, that what is needed is: "a changed mindset, cutting through the dreaminess that has colored so much of our thinking about online communication ... and finally ingesting this fact, that the platforms are not neutral," that the tools we use need to be thoughtfully matched to the changes we seek.
I really liked this book. It's easy to read, fascinating, and thought-provoking in a way that feels productive. Recommended.
We live in a time when it is (relatively) easy to rally people to a cause and to get them to take immediate action. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are fantastic for this.
But systemic change doesn't happen because of "an" action. It happens when a group of people carry out sustained, organized effort over a long period of time. For that to work, the group needs to forge a shared identity and do the hard work of figuring out what they collectively believe and what strategies they will pursue on a sustained basis.
That task requires a very different platform, something more like a table where people gather in private than a public square. As Beckerman puts it, "It's the tables that allow for new identities and possibilities to form." 6/10
In exploring this idea Beckerman takes us on a journey through time, looking at the many ways people have created that table, starting with letters in the early 17th century and exploring a variety of platforms used around the world in the centuries since.
He concludes by reflecting on what might be the right platform for change today. And comes to the conclusion that that is the wrong question, that what is needed is: "a changed mindset, cutting through the dreaminess that has colored so much of our thinking about online communication ... and finally ingesting this fact, that the platforms are not neutral," that the tools we use need to be thoughtfully matched to the changes we seek.
I really liked this book. It's easy to read, fascinating, and thought-provoking in a way that feels productive. Recommended.
March 16, 2023
About a year ago, Diana Wells, my wonderful colleague at Ashoka, pointed me to Gal Beckerman's book, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origin of Radical Ideas. She recalled reading the review after a long conversation we had about The Slow Lane: Why Quick Fixes Fail and How to Achieve Real Change. The Quiet Before is a beautiful book that, through carefully reconstructed stories, shows that radical ideas that brought about real change, didn't come about in big bangs. Instead, they emerged out of quiet deliberation, a kind of whisper, and took unexpected twists and turns. And change, especially of the slow kind, is something we should learn more about.
“Radical change... doesn’t start with yelling. It starts with deliberation, a tempo that increases, a volume set first at a whisper. How else can you begin to picture what doesn’t yet exist?”
Gal Beckerman is a writer and senior editor for books at The Atlantic. His book, The Quiet Before, traces back the origins of ideas that changed the world—ideas like modern astronomy (1635, France), universal suffrage (1839, Manchester), feminism (1913, Florence), free speech in African colonies (1935, Ghana), resistance to the Soviet repression (1968, Russia), young women taking control (1992, United States), and the Arab Spring (Cairo, 2011)—to surprising places, communities, and forms of communications.
The Surprising Power of Slow Communications
The Quiet Before really is a book about how the way we share ideas influences their trajectory. It is a celebration of slow communications as the essential ingredient for real change. A slowness that Gal Beckerman brings to life by letting us dive into the worlds and human relationships out of which radical ideas emerged.
One such world is that of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. He used the medium of post to become a connector of Europe's greatest minds in the 1600s. He corresponded with people across continents in what became a Republic of Letters, a slow process of thinking at a time when suggesting the earth wasn't the center of the universe could get you burned at the stake. Driven by curiosity, he kept pushing the limits of post as a medium to the point where, in a painstaking effort, he even set up an ambitious experiment involving amateur astronomers in France, Egypt, and the Lebanon to draw a better map of the Mediterranean Sea. His correspondence reveals the gentleness, patience and immense effort it took for Peiresc to build trust, and gradually win people over to his cause, and ultimately a new science-based worldview. His slowness, proved a highly effective way of confronting the rigid system of truth established by the church.
Reading The Quiet Before, lets us build an eclectic collection of effective, and surprising, means of slow communications: the postal system of the 1600s, utopian manifestos in Italy in the 1910s, samizdat (underground self-publishing) in the Soviet Union, homemade counter-culture zines published by girls in the United States in the 1980s, and email groups used by public health scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic. What they have in common is that they spread bold ideas at just the right speed, allowing others to contribute and engage in meaningful ways.
Read my full review here on slowlane.us
“Radical change... doesn’t start with yelling. It starts with deliberation, a tempo that increases, a volume set first at a whisper. How else can you begin to picture what doesn’t yet exist?”
Gal Beckerman is a writer and senior editor for books at The Atlantic. His book, The Quiet Before, traces back the origins of ideas that changed the world—ideas like modern astronomy (1635, France), universal suffrage (1839, Manchester), feminism (1913, Florence), free speech in African colonies (1935, Ghana), resistance to the Soviet repression (1968, Russia), young women taking control (1992, United States), and the Arab Spring (Cairo, 2011)—to surprising places, communities, and forms of communications.
The Surprising Power of Slow Communications
The Quiet Before really is a book about how the way we share ideas influences their trajectory. It is a celebration of slow communications as the essential ingredient for real change. A slowness that Gal Beckerman brings to life by letting us dive into the worlds and human relationships out of which radical ideas emerged.
One such world is that of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. He used the medium of post to become a connector of Europe's greatest minds in the 1600s. He corresponded with people across continents in what became a Republic of Letters, a slow process of thinking at a time when suggesting the earth wasn't the center of the universe could get you burned at the stake. Driven by curiosity, he kept pushing the limits of post as a medium to the point where, in a painstaking effort, he even set up an ambitious experiment involving amateur astronomers in France, Egypt, and the Lebanon to draw a better map of the Mediterranean Sea. His correspondence reveals the gentleness, patience and immense effort it took for Peiresc to build trust, and gradually win people over to his cause, and ultimately a new science-based worldview. His slowness, proved a highly effective way of confronting the rigid system of truth established by the church.
Reading The Quiet Before, lets us build an eclectic collection of effective, and surprising, means of slow communications: the postal system of the 1600s, utopian manifestos in Italy in the 1910s, samizdat (underground self-publishing) in the Soviet Union, homemade counter-culture zines published by girls in the United States in the 1980s, and email groups used by public health scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic. What they have in common is that they spread bold ideas at just the right speed, allowing others to contribute and engage in meaningful ways.
Read my full review here on slowlane.us
April 22, 2022
An interesting book about how the medium used in communication shapes and sometimes limits the power of users to create change. The first half of the book details historical examples of change fostered by different message media. The most interesting to me were the petitions used by Feargus O'Connor to fight to achieve the right to vote of non-elite Britons in the 19th C, and the use of a message-board type newspaper in the Gold Coast in the 1930s to make Africans aware of issues and give them a voice in deciding what kind of future they wanted, which built national identity and led to
the nationhood of Ghana and Nigeria after years of colonial rule. The internet has, of course, now changed communication. Beckerman details how recent internet-mediated movements for change in the Arab Spring, in 2017 Charlottesville, in dealing with the CoVid19 pandemic in the absence of national leadership, and in the Black Lives Matter movement all suffered from the limitations of the internet spaces available. The author argues that organizers need more room for debate, more control over whose voices are heard and how they are responded to, and more time for discussion, which the internet cannot always provide. In the final chapter he argues for the type of internet spaces we need to bring about societal change, some of which are now available. Very interesting research and analysis.
the nationhood of Ghana and Nigeria after years of colonial rule. The internet has, of course, now changed communication. Beckerman details how recent internet-mediated movements for change in the Arab Spring, in 2017 Charlottesville, in dealing with the CoVid19 pandemic in the absence of national leadership, and in the Black Lives Matter movement all suffered from the limitations of the internet spaces available. The author argues that organizers need more room for debate, more control over whose voices are heard and how they are responded to, and more time for discussion, which the internet cannot always provide. In the final chapter he argues for the type of internet spaces we need to bring about societal change, some of which are now available. Very interesting research and analysis.
October 29, 2022
A collection of ten stories about an instance of intellectual or political change throughout history.
Beckerman focuses on how revolutionary ideas are incubated and communicated. There are a few phases to big changes - first people need to become engaged with an issue. Something that sparks an emotional reaction or curiosity. Then there needs to be a way to discuss solutions in an orderly, thoughtful way. This is where a lot of movements (such as the Arab Spring) lost potency. Huge public forums (e.g. Facebook groups) are good at getting people interested, but don't lead to focused discussion around solutions.
Similarly, when it came to astronomical speculation in the 17th century, Peiresc preferred "the hushed, discursive conversation of a letter versus the loud declaration of a book - one he thought preferable not only because it avoided certain risk but because of the collective insights it yielded, albeit 'carefully and over time.'"
Once a solution is found, it then takes other skill sets (political, influence, long term consistency) to bring them to life.
I thought the book was well written. There were a lot of stories I'd never heard of, and I appreciated the diversity in leaders that were discussed.
Beckerman focuses on how revolutionary ideas are incubated and communicated. There are a few phases to big changes - first people need to become engaged with an issue. Something that sparks an emotional reaction or curiosity. Then there needs to be a way to discuss solutions in an orderly, thoughtful way. This is where a lot of movements (such as the Arab Spring) lost potency. Huge public forums (e.g. Facebook groups) are good at getting people interested, but don't lead to focused discussion around solutions.
Similarly, when it came to astronomical speculation in the 17th century, Peiresc preferred "the hushed, discursive conversation of a letter versus the loud declaration of a book - one he thought preferable not only because it avoided certain risk but because of the collective insights it yielded, albeit 'carefully and over time.'"
Once a solution is found, it then takes other skill sets (political, influence, long term consistency) to bring them to life.
I thought the book was well written. There were a lot of stories I'd never heard of, and I appreciated the diversity in leaders that were discussed.
November 12, 2023
Pretty cool history of the thinkers and how they communicated ideas to each other ranging from the 1600s to the present. The last three chapters on the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville (2017), the pandemic (2020), and George Floyd's death (2020) were the most interesting to me because he catalogues and dissects how the Internet is used in organizing and communication. The epilogue also proved useful, including some thoughts on Signal, Discord, Mastodon, WhatsApp, Front Porch Forum, and the big social media channels. It helped me think through what I consider a success in some of my organizing circles and a failure in others—how to create those democratic online spaces where everybody has a say, it's kind of secret, and your email inbox is not overwhelmed with the same two people sharing articles every day. Beckerman's reporting was pretty thorough. I got pretty bored in chapters 2 and 3, even at one point picking up the book again in chapter 3 and totally forgetting and not caring what was going on. A fine book. Best part about it was thinking through how to use the Internet to organize.
July 26, 2022
Beckerman explores a range of radical (in the sense of major perspective/societal/political shift) ideas in chronological order, starting with a gathering of observational data on a lunar eclipse from a dozen or so observers around the globe in 1635, and ending with the Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police movement of 2013-2022. The Epilogue ties these moments together with a reference to Hannah Arendt who used the metaphor of a table (with people sitting around it) as a key to fostering thoughtful, progressive, change; a table beyond the internet and social media, while recognizing that this is where we live most of the time these days. He asks us to perceive "dark corners" as "where the first inflections of progress can--and almost always do--occur... Because it is the act of entering into those closed or semi-closed circles that alters identity in a fundamental way. Facting that gray unending slab of reality seems less lonely, and chipping away at it less foolish. You become something else: a person at a table."
June 19, 2022
Fantastic! I got the book from the library than went and got my own copy so I could re-read it.
Each chapter is a different political movement in history from middle ages Italy and letters being written all over the world building a scientific community even as Galileo is arrested. To a Ghanaian newspaper editor creating an anonymous space where all aspects of his community could grow in confidence against the colonial British to Riot Girls, Tahir Square, Proud Boys to experts and doctors trying to fight Covid19 and BLM activists in MN and FL learning how much time twitter can sap from actual on the ground organizing.
Each chapter takes a lesson from previous examples and blends into the next one. Even if the movement "failed" it isn't dead. Just because there is a massive success doesn't mean that that will translate into lasting change.
This is another book I wish everybody would read.
Each chapter is a different political movement in history from middle ages Italy and letters being written all over the world building a scientific community even as Galileo is arrested. To a Ghanaian newspaper editor creating an anonymous space where all aspects of his community could grow in confidence against the colonial British to Riot Girls, Tahir Square, Proud Boys to experts and doctors trying to fight Covid19 and BLM activists in MN and FL learning how much time twitter can sap from actual on the ground organizing.
Each chapter takes a lesson from previous examples and blends into the next one. Even if the movement "failed" it isn't dead. Just because there is a massive success doesn't mean that that will translate into lasting change.
This is another book I wish everybody would read.
December 26, 2022
I appreciated the work involved in illuminating historical radical movements. This book broadened my scope of history. I also think the diversity in movements is a strength.
That said, I do wish the author did a better job connecting each story. While I like that he didn’t push an overly simplistic theory on social movements, I do think it was done at the expense of readability. Because each sorry was completely different from each other, and he put forth very few opinions of his own, I struggled to understand what exactly to take from each, and from the book overall.
I suppose if I were to summarize his points it’s that: revolutions take time, social media hurts but is necessary, effectiveness all boils down to creating in-person relationships.
That said, I do wish the author did a better job connecting each story. While I like that he didn’t push an overly simplistic theory on social movements, I do think it was done at the expense of readability. Because each sorry was completely different from each other, and he put forth very few opinions of his own, I struggled to understand what exactly to take from each, and from the book overall.
I suppose if I were to summarize his points it’s that: revolutions take time, social media hurts but is necessary, effectiveness all boils down to creating in-person relationships.
April 28, 2022
Gal Beckerman's "The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origin of Radical Ideas" is a historical survey of how different media, from letters through manifestos and samizdats and zines to today's social media, have been central to the successes and failures of movements for social and political change. It's a thought-provoking book, and to Beckerman's credit he offers no magic solutions to the mess social media has made of public discourse. Rather, he points to private and moderated spaces for discussion and consensus-building as the essential places where new ideas can be formulated and brought before a larger public. Highly recommended, in whatever media you choose to read it.
February 2, 2024
I think a lot of people didn’t really understand the concept of this book and it kind of shows in the reviews. It uses various movements centered around ideas to show how groups of people attempted formulate and change their societies to varying degrees of success with the tools that were available to them. I thought the chapters flowed well together and built a larger theme while chronologically entering the modern era. The author probably could have more concretely demonstrated how the stories built off each other besides a reference or two to the previous story in each chapter but in all I thought it was decently written and thought provoking.
April 12, 2024
I read about this book through a review when I was myself in an awful, awful place. I've continued to be intrigued by the idea of this book ever since. Keeping up with everything Gal posts on social media has changed the way I see the world. I was not let down by this book at all. This was made even more personal by the years I spent with different movements and the days I felt like we didn't have any solid ideas.
We all long for the evenings when we talk politics till morning with our closest friends.
Gal, I appreciate you publishing this book. I will continue to discuss this book endlessly with my friends in the future.
We all long for the evenings when we talk politics till morning with our closest friends.
Gal, I appreciate you publishing this book. I will continue to discuss this book endlessly with my friends in the future.
June 11, 2022
This was not the book I was expecting, as the title is misleading. The book was more focused on the communication modes of earlier radical ideas - not the unexpected origin of these ideas. While the social histories were interesting and moderately well told, it was just a series of short stories from history that would abruptly end at the end of each chapter with no real analysis or deeper reflection of the thematic threads of connection between them. A little of that was done in the prelude and epilogue but not enough to make a lasting impact.
July 16, 2022
There's some interesting stuff here--thinking through the historical moments Beckerman chooses to focus on is an interesting thought exercise (Why these and not others?), and the premise (that there is a period of group-based gestation of thought that precedes successful social revolutions) is a solid one, though largely it seems to be borrowed from other, more interesting sources (Saul Alinsky seems to be the ur-text here, according to the introduction).
It engages with some really interesting ideas, even if IMO it didn't have anything much new to say about them.
It engages with some really interesting ideas, even if IMO it didn't have anything much new to say about them.
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