Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe

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In this series of personal, political, and literary essays, Nation writer and veteran activist Wen Stephenson traces his search for resolve and solidarity in the face of the advancing climate crisis and widening political abyss.

After three decades of failed international efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change, progressive visions of a better world are now increasingly circumscribed by ecological and social breakdown. The geophysical forces unleashed by carbon-fueled global heating have converged with forms of political nihilism not seen since the rise of fascism in the 20th century. For many, despair has become the only honest response.

Stephenson's argument for resolve in the face of an intellectual, moral, and spiritual abyss. In essays that reach back to the ideas of mid 20th-century thinkers Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel, Simone Weil, Albert Camus, and Frantz Fanon-and back to Thoreau and Dostoevsky in the 19th century-Stephenson finds a constant among these iconic figures-a resolute embrace of universal human solidarity in dark times.

Engaging with contemporary writers along the way-including William T. Vollmann, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Andreas Malm, China Mieville, and Jane Hirshfield-Stephenson charts a personal and political journey from the horrors of Trump's first presidency; through a renewed political engagement via the Green New Deal and his ongoing commitment to escalated nonviolent direct action; to a moral reckoning in the depths of the COVID pandemic and on up to the U.S.-sponsored genocide in Gaza. Throughout, Stephensonposes a question that resonates for many on the left today: If nothing short of revolution can salvage the possibility of a better world, and yet if a viable revolutionary-left politics is nowhere on the horizon, then what does a life of radical commitment look like in the shadow of catastrophes that will not wait

answers not with fatalism or any cost-free hope, but with something sturdier: a resolve and solidarity as real as the dark itself.

Reviews

"InLearning to Live in the Dark,Wen Stephenson confronts our ongoing planetary crisis in all its horrifying bleakness. But even as he looks into the abyss Stephenson is able to find rays of light within the darkness.This is a book for anyone searching for meaning and hope in an age of crisis." Amitav Ghosh, author ofThe Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis

"Stephensons approach to the human crisis speaks volumes to me. He knows it is a matter of heart as well as mind. His writer-heroes overlap with my own because they are morally clear and unafraid. Stephenson too is unafraid."
Todd Gitlin (1943-2022), Columbia University, author ofThe Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage

Praise for What Were Fighting for Now Is Each Other

Wen Stephenson has written nothing less than a love letter to the student organizers, preachers, and frontline fighters struggling for climate justice across the United States. Together, these portraits coalesce into an impassioned call to action, offering a deep well of wisdom for any person coming to terms with the climate crisis.
Naomi Klein, author ofThis Changes Everything

This is a young, fascinating, in-motion movement, and Wen Stephenson captures it with grace and power. I learned a good deal about things I thought I already understood.
Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org

Impassioned, provocative, beautifully written.
Mark Hertsgaard, Daily Beast

In this harrowing, compelling call to action, Stephenson argues for radicalism, for a moral and even spiritual awakening similar to what fueled 19th century abolitionism.
Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe

Thoughtful and self-aware...Stephenson grapples with the existential threat of environmental catastrophe by turning his gaze outward, onto the foot soldiers of the young and growing climate justice movement.
Chris Bentley, Chicago Tribune

At its heart, this book is about a transformative social movement that is desperately needed and might just already be here.
Caroline Selle, Orion

Readers will feel that theyve traveled along with Stephenson and will likely be as transformed as he was as they think about what they might contribute to the environmental movement.
Booklist

Impassioned, provocative, beautifully written...The great value of the book, as well as its great risk, is that it forces each of us to ask: what am I doing about the train thats barreling down the tracks towards me, my loved ones, and all we hold dear
The Daily Beast

In this powerful treatise, Wen Stephenson chronicles the convergence of climate activism and human rights struggles in frontline communities viewed through a climate justice lens. He convincingly presents climate change as the definitive global environmental justice issue of our day.
Robert D. Bullard, author of Dumping in Dixie and co-author of The Wrong Complexion for Protection

Author Bio

Wen Stephensonis a veteran journalist, essayist, and climate-justice activist. A correspondent forThe Nationand frequent contributor toThe Baffler, he is the author previously ofWhat We're Fighting for Now Is Each Other(2015), about the pivotal early years of the U.S. climate justice movement. He is a former editor atThe AtlanticandThe Boston Globe, where he edited the Sunday Ideas section, and has written for those and many other publications, includingSlate,The New York Times Book Review,Los Angeles Review of Books,The Boston Phoenix, and elsewhere. In 2010, he left his career in mainstream media and has since covered, engaged in, and helped organize nonviolent resistance to fossil capital. He lives near Boston.